Ten Observations in My Life
- If something can't last forever, it won't and it most likely will make your life miserable
- Beauty lies in the Divine breath of everyday life
- Happiness is often inversely related to the number of people who have a say in your life
- If you do something with good intentions, there is no necessity that people or time should consider it that way
- When lies are used to address a matter, that matter doesn't matter.
- You can never convince everyone because there will always be people who cannot stand your nerve to convince them
- People do not like to change, improve, learn or approach matters in an objective manner
- A conscious want to connect to the Divine is vital. The minute that want is lost, decadence creeps in.
- To assume that rightness, righteousness and honesty have any value other than to yourself, is a sign of your immaturity.
- To do what is rightly your Truth requires complete realisation which in turn requires complete observation which in turn requires complete stillness which in turn requires complete vairagya.
Aaah! The spiritual-philosophical tone is back in Eroteme's blog, and I thank God (and you too, of course!) for small mercies :-).
ReplyDelete1.If something can't last forever, it won't and it most likely will make your life miserable.
# Splendid! - only Truth and Beauty and all attributes and qualities of/in the Divine last forever, all else falls on the wayside, but ephemeral things will make your life miserable only if you cling to them internally or externally for whatever vested interest or reason, even after knowing its true nature.
2.Beauty lies in the Divine breath of everyday life
# Beauty lies in the Divine Breath . Period.
3.Happiness is often inversely related to the number of people who have a say in your life.
# Ok. You have an escape route in 'often'. All depends on the timbre of the said people who have a say in your life. Anyway, there ought to be elements of your life, your nature, your being that are so precious to you, that you don't allow any one to have a single say in them; A 'Don't-Touch' sign should scare people away from even looking at these precious treasures of your self. When you open yourself up to all and sundry without knowing whether they will nurture you or not, you are in for trouble.
4.If you do something with good intentions, there is no necessity that people or time should consider it that way.
# Poor Eroteme! - I don't know whether these cynical misanthropic 10 observations reflect a bad life sated with poor human relationships or just wise pearls falling rampantly from the lips of Sage Eroteme.
But, don't you know that our ancestors have rightly said in a pithy statement "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? Your statement is similar to that proverb, methinks.
5.When lies are used to address a matter, that matter doesn't matter.
#Ok. Fair enough. Very beautiful.
But lies are always used to protect what is precious to us, therefore I am using lies to address a matter- for example, if I love two wo/men, I lie to each about the other for protecting each from the pain that the knowledge of the other's existence may give her/him, as the case may be. Both of them, and their protection matter to me; lies are the only way out for all to be happy and peaceful. I use lies to address the issue of two people in my life and all these matter to me and unlike what you say here.
I personally think that lies are a main means of escape most of the time, escape from social grumbling about your discourtesies, escape from inconveniences of little truths etc etc. In many cases it may be a question of life and death where if you don't lie you lose your job, life even.
You ought to have written actually, in order to convey what you wanted to convey,
"When lies are told to a PERSON to address a matter, that PERSON DOESN'T MATTER, BUT THE MATTER MATTERS"
6.You can never convince everyone because there will always be people who cannot stand your nerve to convince them.
# Well, even such people cannot refute concrete irrefutable evidence, whether they can stand your nerve to convince them or not. There are always ways and means to convince all sorts of people, which of course one may not possess, or be willing to adopt.
7.People do not like to change, improve, learn or approach matters in an objective manner.
# What sort of people do you know or gallivant, to warrant such an absolute but completely lopsided statement, I wonder! All of us I am sure know many to whom, changing, improving, learning, or approaching matters objectively come easily and as part of their personality spontaneously and happily enough.
8.A conscious want to connect to the Divine is vital. The minute that want is lost, decadence creeps in.
# A conscious want is only this much of a step on the Path; connecting with the Divine, living the Divine is all; it is the only action that can ward off decadence and all the other ill consequences of what is to do with the quotidian ways of man without God.
9.To assume that rightness, righteousness and honesty have any value other than to yourself, is a sign of your immaturity.
# Splendid! My own experience. But, actually, we cannot have relationships personal or professional without a basic structure of shared value system by all the parties involved. So if this is indeed true, that values such as you mention can be seldom expected to be those of others too, then such a state of affairs is very saddening.
10.To do what is rightly your Truth requires complete realisation which in turn requires complete observation which in turn requires complete stillness which in turn requires complete vairagya.
# Just be it. Just do it.
Good that you have worked out an intelligent strategy for yourself if not for others. Because I may do my Truth just as a spontaneous act of being myself without the deliberate pursuing of the aforesaid steps therefor.
Cynicism and bitterness may or may not be the first step towards a tangential departure from our mundane way of living and being; but ultimately a wide tranquil certitude leading to peace, a benevolent understanding of the same condemned souls that led one to such a cynical bearing, and an unassailable Joy in all things that come to us - all this is the actual reality of human life and being.
ReplyDeleteAnything negative and a contradiction to the truth of us, leading us to lament, cry out in frustration or hopeless despair, is just a passage to a steady state of good will and well being.
One should just bide one's time in quiet lightness. Methinks.
# Another remark I would like to make regarding lies and the fifth point of your observations
"When lies are used to address a matter, that matter doesn't matter"
is that lies are perforce thrust on us as a very effective instrument to counter the impossible situation of handling contradictory beings, who are all right in their own attitudes, and may too deeply respect the others, but in a case of having to work together in life or careers, make use of lies only to ease the way of daily confrontations.
The world of Lies is an intricate and complex rich ;-) world even. And I mean here to say that deep respect for contradictory attitudes of varied people can lead to lies, not like you say actual disrespect or not mattering.
I don't feel muddled, but in case my words sound thus, I am sorry about that :-).
# Again, if I may dare say this, I hope the Eroteme in whom the glorious 18 verses were created, would return, and, we again feel the detached Light and Wisdom of Stillness inspiring your works and writings, and not the intermediate mediocrity of anti-human attitude that seems to be the inspiration and source for the present post.
I would have preferred for the alt of 'Om Namo Naaraayanaaya' a glorious image of Sriman Naraayanaa, instead of Lord Manjushri.
ReplyDeleteBut, in a way it is cute that the latter's image evokes in you such a chant of Om Namo Naaraayanaaya!
Nice!
Add this from me:
ReplyDeleteSuspension of disbelief is NOT belief/faith ... almost all of mankind is seemingly deluded and possessed by thinking otherwise.
Is it a surprise then that religions thrive as opposed to religiosity ...
Beware of the priest (even the one within you) - as I always say :-)
i did not understand the first point :) pray explain!
ReplyDeleteDear P,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your detailed response. Will you excuse me if I said I shall respond to them in detail, later?
Dear K,
Suspension of belief is also not rationality!! :-D But I agree with you!
Dear M,
The first point says that believe and relate only to the permanent (if you can find it) because nearly everything else (except maybe mint-almond-fudge) is bound to expire and be a cause for woes.
I loved the post! – More so I loved P’s response to each and every point. Some good arguments in there.
ReplyDeleteTo P “but ephemeral things will make your life miserable only if you cling to them internally or externally for whatever vested interest or reason, even after knowing its true nature.”
I couldn’t agree more – taken some time to realise this but eventually with experience this point is starting to make perfect sense.
“If you do something with good intentions, there is no necessity that people or time should consider it that way”
Agreed. But why does the mind never want to give in and accept that? Why do I still want to argue my point what my intentions were? Why isn’t it enough that I know my intentions were not intending to cause harm? Why do the external factors take away the goodness/purity I felt from within?
Dear S,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to this blog! Not another Parvatiji fan!! :-( Sometimes I wonder whether it is just her writing in as different people!! ;-) I am glad you like the post and P's comments more so. The mind will not give into anything that leaves it naked and without support. The mind and self builds on the ego's delusions and fortifies a lot of them over and over again, giving one the sense of an I. Then we use external frameworks to make that I seem more real (people's opinions, accolades, etc.). To realise Truth and the Self and then remain silent is sufficient to destroy the ego. Not silent with the feeling of "What do these retards know! I know everything and hence I am silent" but a silence with which every sea receives a river. A simple complete emptiness.
Dear P,
ReplyDeleteThank you so very much for providing your insight into this post's contents.
1. Whether one clings or not, ephemeral things (is that a redundant phrase?) can latch on to you forever too. Consider one mischief that you might have paid and which is still haunting you. Consider the money you stole from your grandmother before she died. Consider any such event that you do not cling to but still clings on to you. Stains don't need to be welcome; they can arrive and stay whether you like it or not.
2. I don't understand the difference. I think we are saying the same. I just added everyday life...
3. You seem to be a fortunate person to have made a lot of choices and gotten what you wanted. I come from the other end of the spectrum!! :-D I could get a boss who is not like what I wanted and he could have a say in my work life. There are elements which are not available to people but people will hound you just for that, to break your spirit and to break your sanctity. Life can be quite a fight, milady.
4. So whoever wrote that proverb also had a similar life!! :-D Naah! It has to do with what I have been exposed to and seen/observed and not necessarily what has happened to me. I call the former, life and if you do too then yes, I have had a life that has burnt into me a lot of cynicism!! ;-) But why call it misanthropic!? I also talk about time's way in refurbishing things!
5. I disagree! All instances of escaping and the like are a clear demonstration of the self being more important than the matter itself. Undoubtedly, to everyone the self matters and for protecting it they will do anything. But the Self doesn't matter else they would have stuck to Truth and clarity. So escapes simply demonstrate that ego is far more important and self-preservation is key. For everything else, the matter doesn't matter.
6. Not everything has concrete evidence. Some of them are subjective matters which require the other person to look honestly within themselves and be able to respond honestly. If the person has decided not to be convinced, s/he will deny the Truth you claim. In which case they start building on that denial and cover it all up and soon start believing in whatever started out as lies. In which case you simply cannot convince them.
7. People inherently do not like to learn or change as that means admitting that they were wrong. Even those who do, start out with being hurt and then rationalising about things before agreeing to what is right. So it has got very little to do with the people I meet but more to do with the people who inhabit this Earth. I am not talking about things like whether they want to learn if 1+1 is 2 or 3... Those sort of detatched learnings are easy to come by.
8. Agreed, but my point is about the want. If one is beyond the want and is living the Divine, there is no want to connect and hence there is no lack of want or disconnect.
9. Sad indeed. I can only be honest as far as I am concerned. If people around me are going to lie and start cooking up stories and the like, I cannot do anything whatsoever. I can run away from all to Walden!! :-D
10. Hmmmm
I do not beleive anything is an indicator to goodness. It is like the old wives tale of all suffering being path to goodness. Like hell it is! I could suffer and then die and what goodness are we talking about then?
The world of lies has no path because every seeming path can dissolve under your feet and every place where no road appeared could have the strongest viaduct established. To admire it is fine, but to deal with it is not, IMHO.
Nothing to do with anti-human emotions. People who aren't human don't deserve my attention anyway, so anti-human is out of question!!! :-)
You are queer. In one comment you say you are happy to see the philosophical tone and in the other you say that things are mediocre!! :-o
Let me not go the pingpong ball match way here, and just say that I am happy to see the philosophical tone back in your blog after centuries, but that doesnt mean that the cynicism and evident dislike of human beings are not there; and cynicism, howsoever attractively rationalised is of a source that is mediocre to the truth of existence. Which goes beyond the reality of obviously justified cynicism.
ReplyDelete# As to the other points, well, your theory about stains sticking on to you is ok, but the fact remains that there are always methods to go around this stain, clean it, use vanish, surf excel, throw away the shirt - if you are not doing all to remove it from your life, it means that there is something in you that finds is nice to have it with you, for all the lamenting and frustration that you may express.
After all is done, if the stain is still stuck to you, let's look for other ways to attack it...like cut off your skin to cleanse your body!
It can be done, if sincerity and detachment to wrong and attachment to right is there in you...
:O ... welcome? i didn't ever go away ... sorry i vcouldn't sign in via blogger to leave the comment hence i left it with my name .. sangeeta from sannys scribbles
ReplyDelete