Meditation Explained

Basically meditation is to withdraw from the outside world and have a peek within self. A peek within means shutting down of the thought process and action center which get their inputs from the worldly physical cheat senses. These sensory inputs are processed by our brain to construct a personal or collective faith in the illusion around us, which then prompts us to physically execute the scripted commands of the supreme master.  Its like non-co-operation movement which ultimately leads to freedom. Aazadi of  living the moment!

In advance stages, the meditation is to insulate the sensory inputs from the brain and at the same time shut down the proxy server which auto kick starts on the stored information. Its kinda reboot with all sensory ports disconnected and to stay connected with the pure consciousness. If successfully achieved, it will give you a feeling of timelessness or stillness.

To start with, it is not possible to isolate mind from senses. So we start by concentrating on breath alone while we are fully connected to the outside world through other senses. The idea is to spurn the overtures to enticement by the senses using brain power and remain in a passive state. The idea is to not to react to the outside temptations and noises. Push everything to the background. Initially you would be disturbed by the activity in your backyard. But slowly and gradually the background noises will disturb you less and less as you choose to be indifferent to them and get used to them as a passive observer. The result would be more peace inside irrespective of the noises outside.

So we finally arrive at : Meditation is awareness without indulgence.

In wider ambit, following physical activities can also be classified as meditation:

1. a student studying during festival season

2. a player practicing while his friends partying

3. a man quietly and calmly listening to his wife's rants

4.  an audience calmly enduring a boring lecture

In broader sense, Meditation is willful ignorance of favourable or unfavourable sensual triggers which try to breach peaceful staus quo or thwart your tryst with consciousness. In any case it imparts you peace of mind and helps you to accomplish your goal.

Difference between Sleep and Meditation

Sleep is purely a routine involuntary physical body maintenance process where mind rests in a subconscious state, while Meditation is controlled throttling of the streaming sense bytes in order to interact with the consciousness. Mind is in highly conscious state.

Consciousness – Have it Neat

PERFECTION IS GOD. CONSCIOUSNESS PROMPTS LIFE TO ACHIEVE PERFECTION IN A RESTRICTED PLURAL SET UP.

Life is a journey from relativity to singularity or from imperfection to perfection. Life is change and the change is possible in relativity domain alone. The relativity domain is encompassed by Singularity or perfect consciousness.

The progression of life has been evolutionary i.e. from lower level of consciousness to the higher levels. Consciousness is singular descending from the singularity. All forms of life derive consciousness from this single source on time sharing basis. Each one of us possesses a different level of consciousness depending upon our genetic evolution, species, inheritance, environment, location, ability, company, upbringing & personal efforts.

There are different levels of manifestations of consciousness viz.

BASIC LEVELS – Sensory & Survival

Awareness - sensory consciousness

Lowers-Middle Level –Basic instincts and Survival

Feeling & experience

Basic perception

Emotions

Pleasure and pain

Instinct,  

Middle Levels – Competition

Knowledge,

Learning

Intelligence,

Will,

Attitude and behavior,

Happiness and sadness

Ego

ADVANCED LEVELS- Striving for Excellence

Intelligence,
Learning

Persistence  

Foresight & intuition

Bliss,

Think of a Wi-Fi; mobile phones, laptops, computer or TV sets, they all are receiving their signal from the air and producing the output according to the data they lock on to as per their design and wish of their operator. Without that signal of consciousness they are as good as dead.  

Similarly, all the living organisms are communicating with consciousness from a common source. The basic objective information received and perceived thru senses is same in all organisms. e.g. whosoever with eyes have X in their visible range will see X and whosoever with ears have him within hearing range will hear him and whosoever with nose within smelling range of him will be able to sniff his presence in the vicinity. Those with only touch sensors will be able to feel him upon touch and so on. The basic information transferred will be identical to all in the form of basic awareness. However, retaining that information is again a relative ability.

Awareness or observation would then induce a feeling of pain or pleasure or indifference. The perception of the observation then prompts a reaction within the observer, which primarily would be in accordance to the basic instincts ingrained and propelled by the genes of the species. The living being is very predictable and its interaction with the consciousness is very limited to low levels till this hardware stage. e.g. a cow sees grass and feels hungry and eats it and cuds on merrily. Not much of consciousness is at play.

Then a Lion sees a cow herd. He too feels hungry and wants to eat. Lion watches the herd carefully hiding behind the grass and bushes. Selects a weak target and then slowly and stealthily moves close to the target and then runs after it. The target runs too to save self and there is a skillful chase after which the target escapes leaving the lion hungry and dejected. A higher level of consciousness manifested here though still a product of the basic instinct.

The fundamental rule of life is to survive and reproduce. Each instance of life is designed to be selfish in order to preserve the instance till its natural expiry; also, during the currency of the instance it is expected to produce its own replicas (reproduction) to promote its species and class at augmented level of consciousness. The instance receives the information to survive by the way of genes from its parents then remains under their protection till its ready to acquire its own, which in turn are passed on to its own offspring. That is called Evolution of life.

Each instance of life comes equipped with upto date hardware and further adds on new software using the consciousness to deal with the new events. We call it learning. Life interacts with consciousness only while learning. Normal routine life can be lived in sub-conscious state. Thus learning is imperative for manifestation of consciousness, hence the Evolution. 

Evolution means higher level of competition to achieve greater functionality and give rise to an instance which is more complex and better equipped to understand the nature and survive. Our universe is limited by time and space and life comes packed in a minuscule size body with very limited reach.

It’s the consciousness which prompts life to seek and breach limits of the physical world through learning as if consciousness is trying to discover itself through life or trying to liberate a piece of it captured in the relative zone. It’s a bid to strive for perfection in an imperfect world.

Players and sport persons practices for hour, honing skills to win and excel. Scientists & scholars work on their projects day and night to discover unknown, artists passionately toil to deliver master pieces. And sadhus & monks meditate to master their senses. All of them constantly try to manifest consciousness in its highest form in our limited world. The uphill journey to top requires one to come out of the personal comfort zone and enslave the senses. One has to endure extreme physical pain with undeterred persistence and will in order to achieve the top spot.

In very high states of consciousness, time dilates and space shrinks, making it possible for the piddle fart living being to grow and become at par with the vast universe. e.g. at Roger Federer’s consciousness level at tennis court, the court shrinks and the zipping ball appears to be moving at snail pace.  

However, the real limitations are not posed by space and time but by our own senses and ego. The senses act like gravity and Ego acts like mass in our flight to singularity. At low levels of consciousness, senses exert maximum force like gravity on a stationary rocket. Life is in full control of the senses. Life is at rest or in sub-conscious state in such a condition. But as the life starts negating senses with sheer will, the rocket takes off heading towards singularity. But as the life gathers momentum into the consciousness, EGO, the mass, starts bloating. By the time one reaches the relative top, it becomes hard for one to sustain any further and only way then is down. For one to attain perfection and manifest top level consciousness, it is imperative that one must keep offloading ego on the way to top and finally merge with singularity jettisoning I in whole and uniting with pure consciousness in a state of bliss... From being just a particle, to be in a whole wave harmony! Hey, you observer, buzz off.

References:

"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own self in all beings, and all being in his own self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." ~ Buddha

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness." ~ Max Planck

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”~  Erwin Schrödinger

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and his feelings as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness." ~ Albert Einstein

"The whole world is a cyclone. But once you have found the center, the cyclone disappears. This nothingness is the ultimate peak of consciousness." ~ Rajneesh

“I don't believe that consciousness is generated by the brain. I believe that the brain is more of a receiver of consciousness.” ~  Graham Hancock

Evolution - raised level of consciousness

“You are here to evolve and make your consciousness high. You are here to dance, sing and celebrate life. You are here to help others to make their life happy. We are here not to compete, but to learn, evolve and excel. We are not here to make divisions in the name of prophets and religions. We are here to encompass the world with love and light.” ~  Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power

“We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.” ~  Brian Cox

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” ~  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.” ~  Aldous Huxley, the Art of Seeing

"The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are." ~  David Icke

"Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Consciousness manifests itself in several ways: intelligence, knowledge, intuition, bliss, perception, emotions, will, attitude and behaviour, awareness of pleasure and pain. Life and consciousness are coextensive. Wherever there is life, there is consciousness and vice versa. But there are degrees of explicitness or manifestation of consciousness in different organisms. In the lowest class of organisms, it is very much latent, while in human beings, it is very much manifest." ~  Jain World

Pain/ Efforts & consciousness

"There is no birth of consciousness without pain." ~  Carl Jung

"If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution." ~ M. Scott Peck

Act of Man

Scientists on earth plan to populate moon with machines and robots. It is planned that the moon would be populated on similar lines as the life evolved on the planet earth.

Over a period of 100 years, reproducing robots were evolved in to a very advance robotic civilization on Moon. Man controlled the robots from earth but the robots felt as if they were doing and controlling things themselves. However,  robots were hinted and programmed to believe in a creator, a God. This was most important otherwise the toys would have gotten confused on their way to evolution by the imperfect simulation. God acted like a suspense account to them while we people debugged and conveyed logic through scientist robots.

However, some were left atheists. 

There was greed, emotions, sex & violence, family, religion, politics and all other ingredients of a blockbuster soap.

One day, a  meditating stubborn believer robot was brought to earth and allowed to meet his creator. He was made to tour the godly planet earth. Seeing the plight of his God on planet earth, the robot, Ram, said, "Oh my God! Poor God."

Jai Ho!

When I started learning painting at school, I would draw only the subject. But then my art teacher would tell that my work was incomplete as there was no background in that. I gradually started understanding the importance of  background in a painting. ...and with that came the respect for fellow Indians and my Indianness.

Unmanned Car

The other day during a discussion with my most learned friend, Deven Kalra of Big 'G' Google, he told me the philosophy behind developing driverless car at Google is, the man must do only those jobs where there is need to apply brain or where it is imperative, rest all routine jobs must be handed over to robots.

Hmmm... a great philosophy and logical too. Having come thus far and having loads of information at hand, man's job should be to synthesis information and work on technological solutions to take total control of our lives.  Routine cut copy paste jobs are waste of time and human resource when alternatives are available.

Going back to history, man's obsession with tools has been integral to his evolution. From hunting to going all the way spatial.  Man has toyed with machines. The basic instincts attached to this weird love are:

- Seeking comfort and ease of work

- Greed for more in the shortest possible time

- Identity crisis

Mechanization of human society has not been a smooth sailing. At various levels it met with stiff resistance from the incumbent methods, practices, lobbies & religion. There was always a fear that the increasing use of machines would render the human workforce unemployed. But on the contrary there were other types of jobs created. And each time people embraced and settled to the disruptive technology.

So far so good... But I have my own reservations now.

No doubt our hold on technology is stronger than ever before and it is further growing manifolds at fast pace. But at the same time today the majority of population is making living out of absolutely no skill petty cut&paste data feeding jobs or simple machine operating and monitoring jobs. And that's a great cause of concern. Technology in its stride is going to gobble up these jobs someday very soon. That would leave a vast majority of this unskilled, bum-ass (not used to mental or physical hardship) population redundant.

Whenever I think of human society, I think of ants and bees and bacteria. And that takes me into bit of biology. Some of the biological facts are:

- With in a generation, members of a species are born with various levels of capabilities.

-  Evolution of a species is direct function of the number of mutations and population

Excessive consumption by the worker ants/bees will certainly change the ph & temperature of the hive. The growing large population of  bum-ass drones will have to parish in order to preserve the resources, temperature and ph of the hive. But these drones actually play a crucial role in evolution of the hive. Thus any such eradication of the drones may hamper the evolution process of human beings as whole.

Progression of human society has uncanny similarity to that of  bacteria in a culture. I guess, our growth is almost at the acme of the log phase now, which would have to be followed by the stationary and death phases respectively.

...and that would leave the unmanned car without a passenger.

   

A short but never ending story...

There is this rich owner of a skyrise. He is perturbed by the development of a small property in the vicinity. He is unhappy because:

• the construction process is causing inconvenience and turning the surroundings dirty
• the upcoming property may grow bigger and become a potential threat to his superiority in the region.

Besides, there could be several other reasons for him to feel offended and insecure.

Also, there is a beggar in the area near the developing site. He is happy as he foresees more alms falling in his kitty. 

But the big schizophrenic fella has the other idea. He pays the beggar some money to throw stones at the small guy's property and create nuisance.   The beggar willingly accepts the money and marshals the commands of his powerful boss.  The small guy now considers the beggar as his biggest enemy and root of all his problems. The beggar is by now a full time servant to his rich employer.

...and the life goes on...

p.s. I have since short listed 3 candidates for casting in my film. The candidates are USA, India & Pakistan. The problem is, Pakistan wants the rich man's role. 

Simply, The Godly Bread

There is a Subway Restaurant at my Office building. Every morning when I pass by, the aroma of freshly baked bread greets my nostrils and flirts with my taste buds. The experience is exuberating.

As a curious man, I am tempted to go deep and see how this delicious and tongue tingling food is made. Here it is... You take some rich flour and kneed it into a loose dough by mixing water, salt, sugar and yeast. Let the yeast make merry and ferment the dough and then place it in a preheated oven. Wait for some time... Lo! the mouth watering aroma will start emanating and finally the golden brown crusted tasty bread.

The magic ingredient of the recipe is YEAST. Yeast is nothing but fungus/ bacteria. As the yeast consumes the nutrients in dough it produces CO2 which forms pockets of air within and fluffs the dough. In the fermentation process nutrients are broken down into smaller (but over-stretched) and more flavoured and tastier substances.

To our joy, the colonies and civilisations of yeast are wiped out at their acme every morning as they bake in earthen ovens across the earth. Yet, the yeast learns no lesson. It consumes, grows and multiplies in the dough pans as if it were in an infinite resource. Its end is sealed in its DNA. It is destined to be annihilated one way or the other.  

I pity poor yeast. But soon this pity turns into self pity. Our role on earth is nothing more than that of yeast. To the joy of hungry God, the global dough has now well risen and ready to go in hot oven.  Aroma of freshly baked bread will hit God's nostrils soon and will be received by his olfactory receptors to titillate his taste buds.

OMG!, Bon Appetite! We can feel the heat.