Good reads

Here are a couple of things I have been reading recently:

1. The Power of now by Eckhart Tolle. Seems great. Found it extremely easy to understand and very well written.

2. This article: http://www14.brinkster.com/jnana/What_is_Transcendence.htm . And other writings by this author. Great work!

The latest

I have been happy in flashes only. Other times I have been anxious/ sad/ etc. about not getting any response from the girl I really liked during the Advanced Course. I have been living in stories, feeding on them, realizing this and then dropping it, then fighting the urge to start another story, finding myself in the middle of one a few minutes later, and so on. My mind is not still, in these moments.

So I started thinking right now, again, why do I want her so much? I mean I'll find another girl whom I like and who likes me . Then why do I not want to let go of the possibility of being with her? I realized that when I think about being with some other girl, I feel sort of incomplete about not having been with this one. Why? And I got the following reply from within: I'll still feel that I wasn't good enough to get her to like me. That will make my relationship with the other girl unreal as well. I'll keep feeling incomplete about it. Why? Because this one didn't like me. Although this has not been explicitly made clear to me, it is my 'interpretation' that I want to hold on to as reality and forget it ever happened. Why do I want to forget it? To forget the pain. (Dialog from Revolver: 'Embrace the pain and you will win this game'). How do I embrace this pain? What do I do to embrace it?

Right & Wrong

I realized this again yesterday, we are too caught up in attaching a 'right' or a 'wrong' meaning to everything. Anything that is not right, is automatically wrong, and anything that is not wrong, is automatically right. We do not realize that we are the ones attaching all the meanings.

I started with this book called 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. I was reading it just now when I realized that it is a good book. I inquired within me, as to why I like the book. The answer was because this guy does not say that 'doing this is bad' or 'doing that is bad'. I then realized that no other writer had said so too. I had just attached that meaning to their writings. Some writer says that we are always trying to win the approval of others, trying to 'look good'. I take it as 'looking good is something bad'. But note that the writer had not said so. I then think that he 'implied' so. Well, NO! He may or may not have implied so. This is a meaning attached by me.

Yesterday, in the seminar, the topic of looking good came-up. I realized that if I go the mic to share (feeling confident), I am trying to look good. If I don't go (feeling fearful), I am avoiding looking bad. Then how do I get out of it? I then asked myself, why do I need to come out of it? 'Well, it is bad!'. And I realized that I had attached a meaning to it. Instead of being just present to how I try to look good, I tell myself it is not right to do it.

We are so caught up in right & wrong. But realize that they are not mutually exclusive. There can be no absolute in this. Right exists because something else is wrong. Right does not mean anything on it's accord. Like the two poles of a magnet. Even if you divide a magnet into infinitesimal piece, that piece will have two sides, one a North pole, the other a South pole. That is how right/ wrong or true/false are. One can exist only because the other does. And they are both created by us. Without someone to tell, there are no right & wrong. Right & wrong do not exist. Thing are the way they are. We attach right & wrong to everything. This is the way we become right. This is the way our ego becomes right.

We are all in it. You go through this blog and you'll see that at so many occasions I have meant that Ego is such a wrong thing. I may even have written it explicitly. And now I am telling myself that it was wrong to do that!

Just remembered a quote from the Matrix Reloaded: 'What happened, happened and could not have happened any other way'. It's meaning can alter. The event cannot.

Ego(s)

I have hit on another idea that seems plausible. That there is not one ego, but a multitude of egos. Or maybe the Ego consists of a number of acts. Each act obscures a part of the Real Self.

During the Landmark Forum/ Advanced Course, I was able to transcend a few of these acts, or maybe just one of them. Transcending here means that I became present to them and they ceased to matter altogether. They did not have any effect on me then. Transcending does not mean that I was able to realize that my act was wrong. It was not that I realized that 'I or someone else was not Stupid' (my act being 'you are stupid'). I realized that my occurring of the world was permanently colored by the act. And by realizing that, it ceased to matter to me. That act collapsed then, and I transcended it. The real self shined through that window created in the Ego/ the Identity. And that alone gave me such lightness of mind and the vision. Some of it is getting recreated as I type this.

But the Ego changes very fast. It develops a new act to cover that window. That act start as a transparent glass, so that you will not even notice it being present there. And slowly it will add color to it. So slow would be the coloring that you won't even notice it. And after some time, you will again be seeing the world through the colored glass. The Ego also does this other trick. It will change itself to prove itself right, in a world of right & wrong it created itself. So if you got angry very quickly earlier, it will now try to control the anger, telling you that anger is bad and you are right in controlling it, like what happened when you saw the true self. But it is just a garb that the ego is wearing. When you saw your true self, there was no anger or controlling it. It didn't matter then. Realize this and transcend it. Don't try to change, just be present to it. Just realize what is happening.

When you transcend all the acts, all the egos, then you are truly enlightened.

The Awakening

The unbound love and happiness that I felt after the Advanced Course, it seems that I transcended the ego then. The ego, from what I understand, does not allow for what I felt then.

Did the Landmark Advanced Course cause the coveted Awakening? The transcending of ego?

Then how is it that I got back to relying on Ego? How is it that the real self was not strong enough to deal with the Ego? Is 'strong enough' the right term to use here? Who moved away from the real self? Who was he? I don't remember if I had the feeling of 'I am' then.

Is there a way to partially transcend the Ego? Or temporarily transcend it? Did I really transcend it or did it just temporarily recede in the background, planning the next attack?

I have been worrying that I am losing the grip on what I learnt from the Landmark Education and what I accessed there. However, now I feel that I have really grown in my mind from then. Back before the forum, I had so many confusions in my head. So much was going on all the time in my head. Now I feel very different. There is much more clarity in my head and I feel much more calm. And I feel the more I think, the more I grow. Earlier, I feel the more I thought, the more entangled things became.

After re-reading the last post I realized how beautifully this is set-up. The ego invents right and wrong to make itself right. It abuses the language. In the language, it defines the concepts of right and wrong. It attaches meanings to what it is to be right, and what it means to be wrong. A criminal does not think he is wrong. He has his own ego working on how to project it as right to itself. The moment you go wrong, the ego changes gears. If it is unable to justify it self, it feels shaken and then either manages to justify itself somehow, or it changes.

The thing here to note again is, 'Right' and "Wrong' was invented by the ego itself, just to sustain it's own existence. And we all remain caught in the right & wrong all our lives. If we can go beyond right & wrong, the Ego will cease to exist.

Sri Ramana Maharshi suggests a self enquiry as a means to attain the Awakening. He suggests a self enquiry into the question "Who am I?". Using the above, I am now loosely beginning to understand that the 'I' too is maybe just a concept put forward by the Ego to sustain it's own existence.

I do realize now that the Ego is not evil/ bad. Even it has it's own unmatchable function.

Self Enquiry

The only thing that gets me back to the realm of ego these days is the thoughts about her. So here I'll do some self enquiry .. and write all that comes to my mind. Self enquiry: A great mind exercise.

Why do I want her so much?

"I don't know". That won't do.

"I just want her. She is so nice and perfect. We'll have so much fun together". Is that the real reason? I don't think so? Go deeper.

"I don't know how we will be together. But I'll find out right?". Still on the surface.

"It is about winning. If I don't get her, I'll lose. Isn't that it?" I think it is.

Doesn't it sound too hollow that I want to get her simply because I want to win. I am still not able to accept it. I think this is just a random reason I have associated with it. Is it? More self enquiry required.

Another great way of answering a question is to answer it's opposite. What if I don't get her?

"Well, if I don't get her, then I'll feel sad".

Why will I feel sad?

Notice how I talk about it as getting and not getting. Something like achieving something. This is the realm of ego. Longing for something. Wanting something. Trying to get something. So, while I love her, I expect her to love me back. Whence did this expectation arise? Why do I want something back? Love is not conditional in it's definition. Love can exist if she does not feel anything for me. Then why is it that I want something from her? It certainly isn't in the domain of love. So, love is out of this equation.

Then what is it? Why will I feel sad? Isn't this sadness also arising out of the same place that is expecting? Is it not really about winning? Why is trying to win bad? Well .. nobody said it was bad. I attached that meaning to it myself. "Winning is bad because it is coveted so much. Anything that is coveted so much is evil, it is associated with the Ego". Aha! There you go .. you consider Ego to be bad. How amazing. The ego .. which defines what is good and bad, makes you believe that some personality traits are the work of the ego and are bad. Then it changes itself to the opposite of that personality trait and justifies it's existence. When you realize that how it merely changes and does not go away, you realize that there is nothing good or bad. After all, if both are defined by the ego, who is to decide what is good and what is bad? On that realization, the doors of unconditional love & happiness open up. There is no good or bad, right or wrong. Thing just are. And if there is no good or bad, why restrict your love only to the good? And if love is unconditional, then there are no expectation in return, then there are no restrictions on whom you love.

Ah! I feel free again. Self Enquiry is an excellent mind exercise. In fact, I don't know if there is any other way to exercise the mind aside of this. The more you enquire, the more answers you will get, the clearer things will be. The answers are all there inside you. They just need some effort in finding.

The Ego

I have come to realize that what I thought about the Ego up to now has been wrong. I have thought of ego as something that wants to be right in every situation, something that wants attention, that is responsible for all our extreme emotions like anger etc. Well, that is both right and wrong.

Ego is your very personality. If someone is submissive, then that is his ego that makes him submissive. If he is dominating and angry, then it is his ego that is at work. The real self cannot be submissive or dominating. The Act is also the ego. In fact, the act is a facet of the ego. The act is some belief we have held on to, that gets reinforced over the years. If your act is how the world occurs to you, then it just gets reinforced over and over again, each time you judge the world. It is something like wearing colored glasses. If you have been wearing red colored glasses all your life, would you even realize that all you see is red tinted? Even if you realize the red color, would you know that something without red is possible? The red tinted world would be a reality for you. Reminds me of another dialog from Revolver: "You've heard that voice for so long, you believe it to be you".

The ego keeps manifesting itself again and again. Sometimes it feels hopeless. It feels like I'll never be in that space of peace and calm again. And then, I manage to find it again. The same peace & calm. The clear head. All it requires is a little effort, to see inside your mind. Something that the mind will try to avert. It'll try to stop you. Tell you that it is futile. That you don't even remember. That little voice inside your head, it'll shout out "I don't know" a million times. Go beyond it, and then it is revealed. The ego, the act ... they are caught for what they are. And you get in control again. The real you.

Dealing with yet another breakdown

I have been having breakdowns since 3 days now. Nothing really happens, but I just go into my head and the light feeling disappears.

I have been thinking about her a lot lately. On why she didn't call, why she would definitely call, why she won't call, and why I have to call her. More stories than ever. More stories include what will happen when she calls, what she will say, how merry/ ugly things will be then. I have been feeding myself so many stories that it seems impossible to come out of this one right now. I have been assuring myself that I'll come out of it, but the thing is that I am not really doing enough. The stories are such an assurance, so nice that I just don't want to leave them.

My latest racket:

Persistent Complaint: I can't get her out of my head.

Fixed way of being: Sad. Lost. Unproductive. Not in a mood to do anything.

Pay-off: Assurance. Justification of what happened. Proving that I am not stupid (oh, how the act plays).

Costs: Peace of mind.

What I have to let go of: The assurance that the stories give. I don't need false assurances, do I? Then why live in the story and try to make it real in my mind? All is in language. When I am living the story, I am making it real. It is absolutely real then. When I am living a story, it feels that this must definitely be it. But once the story ends, I see where I am after the story and where I am now. And the gap makes me uneasy. Plus the worry that what if it does not happen this way. Then I invent another story. I stop living in the present and just keep on living in my stories. I am just spinning a web. Mind exercise is completely absent.

I have now to do the following. Be present to my inner dialog. Drop whenever I am gong into a story spinning mode.

The reason why I am not living in the present: The reality of the story is so good that I just don't want to come out of it. I am addicted to it. I am enjoying it. Real life seems drab and boring compared to it. The possibility I invented for myself seems distant and unreal now. To drop this addiction, I got to drop the pay-off I get from it. I got to be busy in the present, to stop dwelling in the past.

Future will be what it will be.

I got to remember something. Whenever I catch my act, I just have to be present to the fact that it is trying to prove me or someone else stupid. Just be present to it. I don't have to think if I was actually stupid or not. Stupid is just a meaning. And any meaning can be attached. There are no real meanings to it. Life is empty and meaningless. So, catch your act, and drop it. Don't argue with it that it was not stupid. Just realize that you are the one who gave that meaning. And this is a game (of attaching meanings) where you will lose. Just drop the need to attach meanings.

Gardener and garden

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him!

-- from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 382, R.J. Hollingdale transl

Happiness

Yesterday, I almost had a breakdown (breakdowns are always just waiting to happen, aren't they?). I messaged one of the (seminar) group members to fix-up the next group meeting. I got an almost-nasty reply. I felt enraged. For a brief moment, I lost all the power to my act, and almost gave in to the anger. But then I stopped. I remembered the scene from Revolver where Jake goes to Macha, drops the gun, and apologizes. I caught my act, became present to my ego working in the background and re-read the message. I realized that she must have been upset already and my message to her occurred in some other way. I resolved to cause a breakthrough for her. I messaged her a most sweet reply - apologizing for the message, promised to call her and inserted a smiley too.

I called her later that evening. We talked for about 30-35 minutes. Not even once in the conversation did I let my act play. The results ranged from good to amazing. In the end, I had to hang up because I had to go with a friend. But I could see that I made some in-roads. I told her about my stand for her, about causing breakthroughs where she had breakdowns. I asked her to treat me like her best friend. What was amazing was that since I did not let my act play, I did not even mind what ever she was saying. I did not get irritated or agitated even once. I had a lot of power in that conversation (not my act). And above all, it felt great to have that power. It felt great after the conversation was over. I realized that her being happy gave me a lot of power.

I remembered just now:

"From nothing, who I am right now, is the possibility of Happiness & Transformation".

Sometimes I think I should change to:

"From nothing, who I am right now, is the possibility of Love & Happiness".

But Happiness is always there. It calls me powerfully into action.

Anxiety

Just when I think I am getting better with my act, it surprises me with it's yet another way of springing up. About half an hour back, my mind wandered on the conversation I'll have with that girl. Sadly I didn't stop the conversation then. So I had a mental conversation considering she says she doesn't like me. The conversation went well (hah!) and I was able to talk with her without my act showing up. But all that was in my head. I was feeding food to my act, my ego.

Immediately after thought the conversation through, I had a terrible bout of anxiety. The same butterflies in the stomach feeling. My mind was shouting "what will happen", "what will happen", "what will happen" ... on and on. I couldn't relate it to my act andhence could not deal with the feeling. So I have been not-so-happy since the last half hour.

But I just realized something. I am anxious about if I'll make a fool of myself or not. Even though I know I won't. I am anxious about what she'll think ("she will think I am such an asshole"). Hah! Just when I thought my act wasn't playing, it manifested itself in a different way. So I just became present to it .. and lo .. the butterflies were gone and I felt happy again. I don't know what she will think, what she won't. Nobody does. She herself doesn't. Not before I have the talk with her. But you let your act play ... and it will alter reality for you. I am amazed each time I catch the act. The whole thing is so beautifully set-up. Flawlessly done.

"The greatest enemy hides in the last place you ever look".

"The greatest con he ever pulled, was making you believe he is you".

"There is no avoiding war. It can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy".

- from Revolver

Beyond the act - Thinking aloud

My act, 'you are stupid', changes my occurrence of this world. Someone laughs at me, and I think that they must think I am stupid. Right now I am thinking that I am stupid for writing this on the blog. I have been trying to 'not to feel' like this all the time. I have been successful too, in pushing those feelings under the carpet. Trying to feel that it doesn't affect me. But at some level, it always did.

The thing to note here is that why is it that I am always triggered by this statement? How is it that it always affects me so much? Is it the ego? My the reflection of the society says that being stupid is the worst of it all? How can I stop it from affecting me?

I become present to my act and that helps a lot. But then I am changing the occurrence of the world to me. But I see no way of accepting the occurrence as it is.

On the other hand, when I become present to the occurrence, am I really changing it?

Got it:

Being stupid is against the society. It makes you different from the rest of it. A stupid person does not conform to the specification laid down by the society. Being a misfit shakes your other self - the ego center created by the society in you. Hence being stupid is always a bad thing in my mind. It may not be 'stupid' for you. It could be something else. But it is just that. The moment you stray from what the society wants from you, your center is shaken and you feel bad. This is how it works. This is what gives birth to inauthenticity.

Appreciation

I had this weird feeling yesterday. Someone was appreciating me, telling me that I was awesome, in front of 5 other people, and I couldn't take it. I mean it felt good, but I was not feeling my usual calm during that time. Happened with me before too. What was at play? What happened there?

I didn't know how to react to it. I said thank you, thanks a lot. Even appreciated her back. But then it felt weird. Why did that happen? How is it that I managed to 'feel stupid' even when I am getting appreciated?

Here is what I think happened:

When she started appreciating me, it felt good. But I was afraid that if I felt too good about it, it would show on my face and the rest of the people will think that I am someone who loves hearing praises and can be manipulated by appreciating. Someone who can be inflated with some appreciation. A stupid person?

So here is what happened. I got appreciated at length. I felt good, but my act started playing then. Hence the weirdness.

My problem in life

Going back a bit, I remembered today morning that the Forum Leader told the guests on the Tuesday evening that whatever is the reason you don't want to do the Landmark Forum for, that is the reason that stops you in life. My reason was that it is a loser-ish thing and I don't need it, because I am not a loser. The exact reason why I have stopped myself in life at so many places. Works wonderfully, doesn't it?

The thing is, you probably won't admit the reason to yourself. Or, you would come up with at least a couple of more reasons to support your reason. Reasons that will be acceptable to the majority of the society and make sense to you. But the real reason is actually just one. It is difficult to find out this reason. Just requires a bit of thinking on your part.

Exercise is important

All seems to get lost without an exercise of the mind. Today when I woke up, I felt lousy. Well, to be exact, I felt like the way I felt before the Forum/ Advanced Course. In my mind, the Advanced Course seemed like eons ago. But unlike after the forum, I didn't panic. I knew I would come back from this one. A bit of thinking, and I felt better again. The morning stiffness vanished too.

Plans

I have had my ups & downs since the last week. One thing is that I just can't get that girl out of my head. Not that I want to anyways. :)

So I had the following thoughts this morning:

I realized that what happened was that she didn't call. And she didn't call because she didn't call. There is no meaning to it. But I have been trying to attach meanings every day. Every day, my meanings switch between 'it has something to do with me', 'it has something to do with the circumstances' or 'it has something to do with her'. And there are 10 new stories that I come up with every day. Things that 'could have' happened to give a result to what happened. Or, the meaning of what happened. But actually, the story and what happened are totally different. I have no way to find out the reason of what happened except by talking with her. And she did agree to go out with me, but I have made that agreement unreal as well.

So I have decided that I'll give her a call if she doesn't call this week. My act is shouting from the background that it is a very stupid thing to do. But I am on to my act. I won't let it get away with it. It has me almost convinced that it is a stupid thing to do. But, I'll do whatever it doesn't want me to do. :)

I'll call her next weekend and ask her to meet me. I am going to enroll her into meeting me. And if things don't work out, then at least I will know what really happened. Or they could just work out, yeah? So I hereby commit not to be in the boat of assumptions (she didn't call because she didn't like me or I'll make a fool of myself by calling her a third time or anything like that). I'll sail in the boat of knowing what caused me to fail, if I do fail at all.

My act almost stopped me. 'I won't call her a third time because it makes me look stupid'. And I didn't even realize that this was my act's doing. It was real for me. I will see this through to a conclusion.

Ah! 30 minutes away from the keyboard and my mind is already attaching meanings to her not calling. It is telling me that see "I am attaching all the positive meanings .. I am giving you hope, don't kill the hope at least?". It is looking for food to live. I won't give it the food. Not today!

Importance of Communication

I had my Seminar Group meeting yesterday. There I realized one thing. It is very important to communicate the conclusions you have arrived at and the possibilities. When you communicate the possibility you have invented for yourself to others, your own thought process becomes clearer. A lot of times, I think I am clear on something. But when the mind thinks, it skips certain parts and makes you feel that those have already been taken care of. So while the thing is still going round in your head, there may not be 100% clarity. When you start communicating or writing that, it becomes clearer. The reasons you had for skipping a particular step of deduction becomes clearer and you realize that maybe the deduction was not so obvious.

Hence, I think that writing and/ or communicating is a great way of increasing your clarity of mind. While writing, you can write down only your perspective. There is no questioning of the ideas. Writing is certainly better than just thinking about it, but it cannot compare to sharing it with others.

The real deal

I read on the internet at a lot of places that in Landmark education, they always tell you that the real deal is the next course. Before the Forum, I thought that that was a wonderful marketing technique. Show them the cherry and convince them that there is a cherry farm if you come along.

The problem is not that they are showing you the cherry and promising you the cherry farm. The problem is that you don't believe that there can be a cherry farm. This thing is we all are programmed to search for the 'catch'. That is how we feel intelligent. We will take so many decisions after knowing what the catch is. But any decision without knowing the catch comes across as walking into a trap. We have been programmed to not to accept the things the way they are. There has to be a meaning attached to it. So what do you do if you don't find the catch? You think that this is such a well laid trap that the catch is not apparent. But the thing is that there could be things which are what they are, without any catch. Yet that is unacceptable in your reality.

Our relationship with money is also screwed. We think that best things in life are free. We really believe in that. So everything that costs money is not that good. The mere fact that someone is earning money and promising you good out of it is unacceptable to us. Hence, you will find people criticizing Landmark only on account of the kind of money they are making. Yet, if the same thing is done under a guise of free education, supported by advertising or something like that, we would have no problems. Then we would not like to check as to how much money is coming from advertising and grants and all that. Now it comes across as a corporation charging money for doing good. And Corporations for us mean profit making machines. We consider profit as a bad thing too. How can someone have good intentions if they want to make profit, isn't it? Hence all the non-profit organizations of the world are the best, including organizations founded in religion. Yeah?

The red pill and the blue pill

That article I mentioned in my last post, it was really good. It was written by Osho. Had I known of the writer before reading the article, probably I would not have read it. I am kind of biased against all the gurus. But the article was brilliant. It was well written, in simple language, and covered the subject well.

So after reading the article I realized the choice of the red pill and the blue pill (from the movie Matrix). The choice is between living with the ego or going beyond it. Living with the center that the society created for you (from that article) or finding your true center.

Have I really arrived at a place that gives me this choice? And are these the only 2 options available?

I have been thinking on these lines since yesterday.

I feel that the blue pill, living with the ego, that is where Landmark Education works. It helps you develop tools for dealing powerfully with miseries generated by the Ego. Another way of looking at it could be that it makes you present to the doings of the Ego. But it doesn't teach you to transcend the ego. That article tells you to just be present to your ego. And in being present to the ego, one day you'll transcend it. If I go by that article, I realize that it is not about the two options. It is the option of - when you choose to follow the path to outside of the small clearing that the ego is.

Is transcending ego same as the much sought after enlightenment?

That is what I have come to understand.

What I have also come to understand about Enlightenment is that you become happy in yourself. You don't have to base your happiness in someone else then. While that opens up a possibility of unbound, unconstrained love, it closes the possibility of a relationship between two beings, based on love. I am not sure I am ready to sacrifice the possibility of that. I realize that I am so much attached to that possibility, that the moment it opens up for me, I become blind to everything else. It is the ego at play. The search for a powerful center, a center that will support my center and will in turn get support from me. Even though it sounds mumbo-jumbo, if you haven't read the article, know this that it is simply wonderful how a romantic relationship works on the level of ego. I am too attached to this one thing (this is a racket, in Landmark Lingo ... the pay-off being justification and the cost being true happiness).

I also found that I have been trying to change myself a lot, since the time I have done the Advanced Course. Instead of being present to the way ego behaves, I have been trying to change what I consider the work of ego. I make ego bad and then use it to do good. I have been trying to be humble, not realizing that even that is my ego.

I started out by just being present to the act. But slowly I tried to change it. I analyzed each moment and tried to change the "you are stupid" to "you are awesome". But it is very difficult to change that in the mind. Even when the mind accepts it, it never is at rest with just that. I am still not sure whether that is the correct way to go or not? I mean everything is born in language .. so if I change the occurring in the language, I can change the miseries it causes. But then I am going into what is good and what is bad. I am a bit confused. Requires more mind exercise on my part.

UPDATE: Got it! All I am doing is changing the meaning of the situation. But is there a real meaning to it? No! Life is empty and meaningless. We are the ones that attach all the meanings. So it is enough to be present to the fact that you attached a meaning to it. Changing the meaning will not solve any problem.

The trick is to remember this distinction correctly and use it.

Rackets

Rackets was the theme of my last Seminar.

Just thought of a nice example of a racket I indulge in, from time to time. Sometimes when I am making a point, or presenting my strong opinion, I'll say "that is what I feel/ understand" at the end of the statement. You know why I say that?

Payoff: Being right even if my statements are proved to be wrong.

Cost : Not coming across as an authority on the subject. Coming across as unsure.

The act and the ego

I have realized that almost everything I have done in my life up to now has been determined by my act. I have been my act for most part of my life.

My act, "you are stupid", has always kept me on my toes, to avoid anybody thinking that I am stupid. And whatever I did, WHATEVER, nothing was ever enough. I have been paranoid, thinking of how I could be better than everyone alive. That, I thought, was the solution to all the problems of my life.

For so long now I have been wanting to prove how intellectual & funny I am .. to whoever I could prove it to ... of course without being obvious that I am trying to prove it. It is like you spend one day in gathering information on a subject, and then mention the crux of it, just in passing, in a non-interested kind of way. Lest someone find out that I spent so much time researching, to avoid looking bad. Or rather, to avoid looking stupid.

Every time I have felt anything bad about myself, it always meant I was Stupid, somewhere in my mind. If someone called me fat, then I thought it to mean that I was stupid. If someone tried to explain something which I couldn't understand, I felt stupid. I chose my career, my path of life, everything ... just to prove that I was not stupid. It is simply remarkable how it works.

How did I form my act? In the Landmark they told us that there was a definite moment in the past when it was formed. Before that all was well. I have not the slightest idea when that moment was. Maybe my act prevents me from recalling the exact moment. I don't know if recalling the exact moment will help me or not.

I am now able to catch the act a number of times. Other times, it creeps up slowly and you come to know of it only when it is in control. I was just thinking, that each time I catch the act, I see how it modifies the occurrence of the world to prove me Stupid. But going one step ahead ... why is it so bad to be stupid? The best answers I am able to come up with are: "it is bad ... because it is bad. It is just bad", "everyone knows it", "It is not bad .. it is just not acceptable". Not one valid answer at that.

So, there has to be something beyond the act, that which has given birth to the act. Which won't let you see beyond the act. Which will still retain control after the act has subsided. To whom, it is just not acceptable to let go of control. What is it?

I think it is Ego.

The ego has you do all the things. It gives birth to the act. But why?

Is the act a defense mechanism, which was once needed, but has now gone out of control?

I think yes.

Then the question arises, what is ego?

I came across this brilliantly written article: http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm

I am still reading it. I think it is bridging the gap that I felt existed in my understanding.

Will post more on this in the coming days.

It is a long journey to the real 'I'.

The Seeker

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless being.

-- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Just read this wonderful article here:

The Power of Context and the Courage to Create

Joe Dimaggio, Landmark Forum leader

The instant the ball rolled between Bill Buckner’s legs New England broke into a collective moan. Mets fans uncontrollably squealed with glee. Then it was over and there was only silence. Local taverns packed with people watching Game 6 of the 1986 World Series suddenly filled with malice and fans walked away leaving money on the table. Boston’s long awaited world championship was there—and then it was gone. All that remained for Red Sox fans was the grim certainty of an inevitable loss in Game 7 and more proof that this was not the year.

The Red Sox didn’t have a chance. This team and its fans didn’t recover from such defeats. Never had and never would.*¹

Sports fans have a tendency to get attached to the games, the players, the seasons. The players, larger than life, are personal heroes; they pull the curtain back on greatness and let their fans play a part. But in Boston, that was not to be. For many years, whatever momentary hope Red Sox fans may have had—thinking perhaps this time they could win—was eclipsed by their team’s continual string of losses. It was the conversation in their neighborhoods, their schools, their families, even among their politicians. They knew they’d blown it in 1918 by trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees, and since then they just couldn’t get back to the top. The state of affairs for Red Sox fans was a hard, cold reality—the way it was. The context hovering over them was that “the Sox” weren’t winners. (Luckily, I was a Yankees fan.)

We’re defining context here to mean “a fundamental set of assumptions”—assumptions that are not recognized as assumptions, and that go unquestioned—in which the world happens. When people thought the earth was flat (an analogy that grows old but never dies), that was a context or worldview that limited perception and behavior—how those folks saw the horizon, how far toward the edge they sailed, and so on. Similarly, our way of being a man or a woman, and the possibilities available to us, are given by the assumptions embedded in our culture, our language, and times in which we live. A girl born in the U.S. today would likely inherit a very different possibility for being a woman than a girl born in the 1930s or ’40s—would she be a dot-com mogul or running for president?

So if you consider the premise that the whole world happens inside of the assumptions we hold true (and if you do the math), what becomes apparent is thatcontexts are a mighty and decisive force. Contexts come to us by default, and we live our lives essentially unaware of their existence and of their far-reaching influence. It’s like wearing blinders—we don’t see the contexts themselves, we see only what they allow. These default contexts determine our worldview: what’s possible and not, what’s true and false, what’s right and wrong, what we think we can and can’t do. They travel with us—wherever we are, they are—shaping our behavior, our choices, our lives.

Just as these default contexts can be what keeps us limited and stuck, created orinvented contexts can allow for freedom and power. We’re not talking, however, about substituting one context over another, or finding a better context or the rightcontext. Rather, it’s about becoming aware of and responsible for whatever context we are functioning inside of, and realizing that we have the power not only to invent contexts, but to move freely among them.

History is strewn with examples of times when major advances happened as a result of new contexts being created. Democracy, equality, relativity, human rights—new ways of understanding the world—were at some point, newly distinguished contexts. The Copernican revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe, ushering in modern astronomy and the scientific revolution. Newtoninvented gravity (certainly, before Newton, there was a physical force, but he transformed the possibility of that force), enabling us to understand and interact more powerfully with the physical universe. Einstein created relativity—a context that catalyzed modern physics and tells us how nature behaves on the scale of apples, planets, galaxies, and on up. At one time, human rights, as we think of them today, simply didn’t exist. Kings had rights, priests had rights, and the ruling class had rights, but the majority of human beings—and often, certain specific groups within a society—did not. In each of these examples, some person or a group of people saw through or past “the way things were,” or the way they “seemed to have to be.” The act of doing so, and saying so, reshaped the course of events and redefined human experience from then on. And we then began living into those possibilities and the “truth” of the world was transformed.

And so it is with being human. We take for granted that things are a particular way; we think it is our circumstances, our cultures, the content of our lives that determine our experience. And if we want some kind of change in our lives, we usually go to work on changing the circumstances—essentially moving the contentaround. (Not surprisingly, we then end up living content-driven lives.)

Living from an invented context has just as much impact and command value as living from a default context—the difference, however, is the difference between a life of predictability and a life of possibility. The answer to the question “what’s possible in being human?” doesn’t need to be looked at through a default lens. Seeing past our old assumptions about “the way things have been” or the way we thought “they had to be” and creating a context of our own choosing alters the very nature of what’s possible—and the truth of “our” world gets transformed.

An invented context is essentially a realm of possibility. And we have the wherewithal to create that realm simply by our saying so. Language—what we say (silently or aloud, once or repeatedly, to ourselves or to others)—has the power to shape reality. When we know our conversations constitute who we are, it shifts our relationship to the world. The shift does not necessarily get rid of the lens or filters or mindsets per se, but what occurs is that those old assumptions simply stop defining who we are. Context known in that way is never inherited, never a matter of acculturation, never a matter of something we picked up, never a matter of accident—it’s always and only a matter of our choosing. Choice is a uniquely human condition. “The stone and the tiger have no choice of life: the stone must gravitate and the tiger must pounce. Only human beings are faced with the mind-boggling responsibility of having, at each and every moment of their lives, to choose what to do and what to be. It is both a necessity and an invitation.”*²

In 2007 the Red Sox became World Series Champions for the second time in three years—and had the most dominant postseason run in history.

*¹Glenn Stout, Boston Baseball, September 2004
*² Harry Eyres, “Tyranny of Choice,” Financial Times, 11/2/07 (citing Jose Ortega y Gasset, in his essay “The Mission of the Librarian”)

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Mind & Body

The mind & the body have a deep connection with each other. The mind can easily control the way the body feels, because the 'feeling' part is carried out in the mind. Here is what I have experienced from time to time:

Last year I started getting these severe back-pains and had to quit the Gym for some time. Then, whenever I began weight training, the pains would re-surface. A lot of doctors proposed a lot of theories. Some doctor said that I may be suffering from 'Fibromyalgia'. Fibromyalgia is a syndrome, wherein, the patient feels wide-spread pain, especially at particular points. Cutting the long story short, I was sure I had it. Otherwise, there is no formal diagnosis available to check.

In a recent car trip, I was a bit skeptical about the amount of driving, because I usually get the pains if I drive for more than a few hours. I drove 13 hours on the first day and there was no pain at all. I didn't even notice it that time. Then at one point in the trip, I was really worried about my car's underside hitting the road (very bad roads). I had just been driving for about an hour or two when I felt the first pain. And then I realized that the pain had little to do with physical stress ... it was all in the mind.

In the advanced course, I asked that girl out. She didn't call me and then when I asked her out again, she postponed it by a couple of weeks. I didn't even realize how anxious I was. I lost my appetite. In the 6 days that followed, I had less than a meal each day. And I didn't even realize that it had anything to do with it. Then, one day, the realization hit me, that I had such a huge crush on her and that I was so anxious about it. Immediately I felt better. My appetite was back and now I am fine (still not ok with the things with her though).

The point here is that the mind has a firm grip of the body. And if your act controls the mind, then it can control your body too. And you'll never even know.

I read some amount of text on Vipassana meditation. They made it sound magical when someone claimed to have treated diseases by meditating. Now I believe it to be possible to a certain extent. Both the mind & body are very powerful. It is just the question of realizing the power and using it.

I read some text by Sri Ramana Maharishi yesterday. I then realized that even though I have been able to push the act to the background, it is far from gone. It is still lurking there. But it is a start! Self realization or enlightenment will follow when it is gone completely. I have just started on this path .. but I'll reach there.

Dealing with a break-down

I went out with some friends yesterday. Everything was great, but sometime during the evening, my act took control. I didn't even realize when that happened. All I knew was that I was feeling miserable, uncomfortable & and a bit afraid. And as hard as I tried then, I was not able to deal with the breakdown. I couldn't even think. All I could hear was my inner voice shouting at the top of it's volume. It was going berserk. All I could think about was my opinions & judgments about others and what they must be thinking about me. There was no reason to panic. But it was a turmoil inside me. I couldn't even understand what was going on then. Of course I felt 'stupid' .. my act was in control, and we have not been the best of pals lately. :)

So I was feeling even more miserable today morning. Everything that happened yesterday seemed to point out that what a fool I had made of myself, even though nothing like that had happened. My act was shouting out loud: "now you know why you need me?", "I am your best friend", "no life without me", "you need me", "that landmark thing can't make you look cool, it makes you look like a complete idiot", "we used to never fucking lose before. And look at you now ..", "I ... am .. your best fucking friend". I was at my wits end. I didn't know how to end that voice. So I just thought how I dealt with break-downs before.

I tried to re-read the blog. But this blog helps only when I am writing it. When I am writing each post, I am just writing whatever comes to my mind. That increases the clarity in my mind. But when I re-read it, my act makes it unreal. It makes it look like a story (plus it points out all the typos as well). So after each post I re-read .. I would hear in my mind "not helping is it? Nothing will .. you cannot live like this ..".

So here's what I did (like the last few times):

I started recounting the previous day's events. I started from the time I felt the first breakdown. But my act won't let me remember anything. Again the same conversation. Again the same forgetfulness and the enveloping hopelessness. So I concentrated more and somehow arrived at the first event I remembered from the day. Then I began recounting how I felt at that time. Finally I arrived at the exact moment the first breakdown happened. And then in each scene of the story, I began to see how my act ("you are stupid") changed the occurrence of the event. Just doing this exercise automatically separated the 'what happened' from the 'story'. When I opened my eyes again, I felt much better. There was a final try from my act (to avoid remembering the rest of the day's events), but I overcame that and recounted all the events.

I caused a breakthrough. I feel great again!

And now I am confident that I can cause breakthroughs again & again. Time to develop some muscle in this area now.