Being Online

A few thoughts – 

Today’s generation, as is said, seems always “online” onto something. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they know what seems appropriate for them.  One should note here, that what “online” preference you decide for yourself, makes or influences your character in the end.

Thus, what do you think, maybe the best source of information which will benefit you, by staying online with it?

Can you stay online with a person, event, situation, thoughts, or with yourself?

What if you decide to stay online to God – the real strength in you?

And how does one do that?!....By knowing the stuff we call “thought”

Thought and the built environment

In the third series of article on thoughts and their effects, I choose to look at the connection of thought on our built environment.

It is a mistake to look only on the ‘form’ of the building and immediately pass comments on the same. It is also a mistake to think of a form (crystallize it in the mind) and produce it without thorough review of the same.

What leads to creation of ‘form’? This question will lead us to ask - what are thoughts, how are they shaped and do we structure them to visualize a built environment? To me, this connection can be stated as – thoughts (which are values or concerns or concepts) lead to deployment of a suitable process to create an appropriate form for the given situation. Thus, the emphasis is in what and how one chooses to think?

The how is dependent on why. The why is all about perceptions and conceptions of ‘space’ as a social construct. Meaning, social constructs born fundamentally out of understanding of geography, history and philosophy. Born out of interconnections, interdependence. Thoughts which acknowledge collective memory, collective wisdom, inheritance, evolution, pattern, transformation, continuity of intrinsic values and so on.

In other words – dependence on the environment and being empathetic to Creation.

This needs to be highlighted in an age, where the nature of thoughts seem to make us more and more aloof to everything around us. There is profound disconnect with the experience of environment and what we seem to be solely dealing with is plain virtual stuff that may have got very less to do with empathy.

The changing nature of thoughts is resulting in the changing nature of the built environment – from the communal to the individual; from the multiuse to the exclusive; from the sustainable to sheer abuse of resources; from social/cultural to simply rational; from lateral thought of space to linear thought of space; from soulful to pure functional; from local to global imagery; from humble to overwhelming; from bare to overflowing; from simple to complexity; from wholesome to fragmentary; from hand to machine; from spontaneity to predictability.

Isn’t thought important to be considered (and to be understood as a precursor to creating built environments?)

Thoughts Continued...

In continuing with the previous article, the revelation is – whatever we think (which includes perceiving and conceiving), has an effect on the environment – sooner or later (and this connection is inevitable). Exactly what is the connection and how does thought result into some ‘form’ of situation is extremely hard to predict, however, the connection can’t be denied.

Herein lay two approaches to our lives therefore –

a)      We may remain ignorant of the effect of thought and continue to harbor any kind of thought without conscious reviewing and we lose control over the quality of our life. In such a scenario – everything appears to happen by chance. We live an emotional life probably, and we continue to experience cycles of pain and pleasure without any escape. We keep complaining when there is pain, but don’t consider questioning the cause of pain. More precisely, we don’t take the effort of decoding the pain.

b)      We may become aware of the nature of thoughts and their effect on the environment and then become more aware and disciplined in our approach to thinking. We may realize the complexity of the given situation – out there – and realize that regardless of the situation, it is we who need to consciously decide the quality of our internal thoughts and thereby create an appropriate response. Note that we create a response, for that is all we can do. Once a response is conceived in our mind, we need to act on it. This is engagement. The response is intended to do what needs to be done – and is not supposed to be based on anybody’s perceptions. By being engaged in the purity of action, our mind (series of thoughts) becomes pure. Becoming pure, means to see thoughts in proper perspective….to see the nature of the mind…..to not be afraid by thoughts…..to understand that thoughts are incidental and they need to be channelized….to understand completely that thoughts are an aspect of existence. By being engaged in action, we are training our mind to remain detached from any expectation of ‘fruit’ (bad or good) thereby, reducing any kind of attachment (pleasure or pain). It will be realized that pleasure or pain – are kinds of attachments we create because of a certain type of response. The nature of response needs alteration, if we wish to remain unfazed by fluctuations in situations.

Thus, know the nature of your mind! A practical way would be to visualize good things about one’s self and practice it in action. Thus, the importance of thinking of values, practicing empathy, being kind, speaking kind, expressing gratitude and so on – all these are real stuff!

Hence next time - watch your thoughts! They are more potent than anything else around you!!

Thoughts

I will be brief. These are ideas (thoughts/ realizations/ experiences) and they are in the process of getting explored further. None of this is final and at rest – the picture will continue to evolve.

We need not get swayed by the weight of the Past or by the pull of the Future – NOW is the perfect state of existence.

Past , Present and Future are the projections of our mind – they are created by us, so that we imagine a direction. Why are they created? Birth. From birth, there is born a necessity to survive. Survival is based on dependence (on environment, which we term as food, shelter and clothing). We keep perceiving and conceiving responses because we remain dependent on something – situation, product, person, process or an idea. Dependence is required of course. It is only because of dependence, that an idea of transcendence is born and hoped for. Transcendence is for ‘us’ – mortals! Why would God need to transcend into something?! God will transform into a manifested phenomenon – which includes us! The phenomenon should again transform into God (Dissolve/ Return/ Void etc.). This is inevitable.

Thoughts arise from our body/ brain capacity and mind. After conscious effort, we may realize the idea of ‘Time’. Time – which changes, is an indicator of impermanence and is an indicator of limited potential life of existence (or the manifested phenomena). This creates an idea of optimization and accomplishments for us. We also probably feel ‘incomplete’ in ourselves and the entire effort is to reach a state of perfection where things remain the way they should. The idea of perfection is a constant running of our mind to the reference of the Past and the Future. Ironically, we remain the victims of thoughts by such an attitude!

A Time comes, when we start to realize the true nature of thought and how it seems to bind us to imaginary projection of the romantic or painful Past and the hopeful or escapist Future. One needs to train the mind to be aware regarding how any kind of thought leads to a certain impression on our mind and if entertained, how impressions lead to series of thoughts and then to a character. If this is unavoidable, then we need to decide what is to be thought about? And how can we then create a positive series of thoughts?

The above two questions lead us to develop a response that believes in pure action (for action’s sake) and to minimize creation of unwanted series of thoughts.

I bet this is a full time engagement!

Building the Gerkhin

We return from where we started.

All my life, I tried to control my thoughts – By control, probably we mean to ‘not acknowledge’ the impermanent character of existence. Impermanence is because of our changing pattern of thoughts – these can’t be arrested or controlled in an absolute way.

Important learning to be gained is, the factors that define control – and most of them are social constructs (or our own imaginations stemming from our own existence). We are born, we have been given a body, we have a brain and this mechanism of existence leads to the creation of the mind. The mind knows that things change and it has to also ‘die’ one day. This is difficult to acknowledge or accept. Thus, we try to run and control all external factors with the hope that some permanent remedy is found and we would remain at peace!

Situations change, people change, we change, our body changes. People come and go – just as any cyclic event of Sunshine and sunset. By understanding this deeply and intuitively – this pattern of cyclic movement, would we begin to see things as they are and that would lead us to remain calm amidst the changing environment. We make connections of thoughts with everything around us to such a complex level, that any change in the situation leads to a deep psychological cut within us. We get profoundly affected, since that is what we have made ourselves believe!

Of course, it is true to an extent that we experience our existence. Mind will create all dimensions of existence. It is the mind that needs to be understood. What we fear, is our thoughts and what they would lead to. What we fear, is our expression of our thoughts into a reality that we think we can’t handle. However, if we fear, so becomes our nature of thoughts – which lead to a corresponding manifestation of a situation. In order that we therefore build a future which we would like to live (or fully experience our potential), then we need to first do three things –

a)      Acknowledge the terrain of the mind. Mind has positive AND negative emotions, which require constant monitoring.

b)      Being immersed with such thoughts that would lead to fully explore ourselves. At the same time, focusing on the positive nature of thoughts. This is a practice – of visualizing what we wish to become for ourselves and for the people around us.

c)       Building the Gerkhin – Any situation will force us to act. We must act, regardless of the outcome of our actions. The choice of our action is not based on anticipated results, but on what one considers proper for oneself. This is training to the mind. In being engrossed in such a practice of doing what is right, eventually life will turn out the way we want to – which is more truthful, sincere, honest, courageous, fearless and unsophisticated.

I think the greatest thing to accomplish for oneself – is to speak one’s mind without any inhibitions. This feels very hard for a lot of people (even to hear someone talk like this). This maybe, because the person’s speech might inadvertently be reminding others of their falsehood! Therefore, life is not easy for the truthful person. However, everything finally subsides when compared with the honest effort one undertakes to build his/her own life. At the time of death, nothing really is going to matter at all! If this is so, why not live each moment truthfully, so at least we are satisfied regarding the kind of life we have attempted to create?!