Mirrored Selves

An elegant lady recently raised an oft cited point that there is a mind & a heart & they are neighbours in the colony of the individual's personality. I have viscerally failed to understand what I believe is an imposed dichotomy of convenience & I shall elaborate over this post.

When one instinctively picks winning stocks, we compliment the mind.
When a mother instinctively rushes to the kids' room, we cheer the mother's heart.

When one is tricked by an illusion, we chide the mind's eye.
When one is fooled into believing an illusion of love, we bemoan the heart's naiveté.

When one party tricks, we call his mind cunning.
When a party is tricked we call his a trusting heart.

When an individual admires the night sky & proceeds to understand the stars, we admire his mind.
When an individual admires the night sky & describes it in a poem, we sigh at his heart

When a man devises ways to make money, we call his mind shrewd.
When a man seeks ways to distribute his money, we call his heart generous.

Recalling a face, a memory, that night, the kindness - all of it is in the brain. Yet, we oust it from the podium where gentleness is celebrated. The minute the brain devises clever stratagems we declare it to be a work of the mind. The minute it recalls ardour & sobs we embrace the kind heart & proclaim that all that is good is not yet dead. Well, the heart that built the Taj Mahal also chopped off hands (a tale with no basis).

Kahneman in his seminal work on how the brain seems to work (primarily around decision theory) seems to indicate that what we popularly call of the heart is often in the realm of System 1 thinking of the mind. Nowhere does he call them out as mind & heart. Not that you must agree with him, but do give the poor scholar some credit.

I could well rush to call it all yin & yang & how a little of each stains the other & satisfy all our needs to be vague & placatory, but I am unable to draw a line where the mind ends & the heart begins, or vice versa. Sometimes kindness & sensitivity is a cultured response. An ignorant soul when exposed to the suffering of others, develops the requisite sensitivity & heart-felt, nay, mind-nurtured response. All our heart remains unaware of the predicament of cotton mill workers in Uzbekistan until we are exposed to their plight. Plenty of human sensitivity finds origin in education. Where a man is blamed for his uncouth behaviour, he is slighted for being poorly educated, a matter largely of the mind.

Where the mind is often pinned is in the vicinity of what Mr. Hofstadter calls "certain kinds of gooey lumps encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts". The heart, safely, is bookmarked near the eponymous sanguine pump. While the mind is rational, cold, blood-thirsty & exacting in its measured persona, the heart is throbbing, warm, gentle, loving & so vaguely absent-minded in any measure & in every measure. One evokes sympathy & a billion dollar romance industry. The other evokes hushed objurgation & a multi-billion dollar industry of commerce & financial transactions. Where one lulls a babe to sleep, the other rings the young to rush to work.

It is difficult to exclude a scientific enquiry into this matter but I shall abstain to the fullest of my ability.

All our perceptions & observations are through our senses, rooted in the brain (I'd say the central nervous system as well, but let's call all that the "brain"). What the brain receives as stimuli the brain processes to distill as insight, learning and/or method. All exposure to this world is through the senses & most of our responses are our interpretive volley to those stimuli. If we leave hormonal responses of hunger, fear & sexual needs aside, we would not have a response had we not had a fermentation of our sensory loot. A babe cannot sigh till she has accumulated sufficient sense of irony or the ability to gather intensity till the point of climax. A babe has no concept of connect as she would connect to anyone who would feed. It is thus that adoption & surrogacy thrive as options.

Try this experiment with the most sensitive person you meet: In a monotone, explain the movie clip they are about to see. Tell them how everything ends well & the father saves his daughter. Make your friend aware that kids when asked how much they miss someone will more often than not throw their little arms wide open & that is cute & expected. They probably learnt it from their parents & recognised that it is considered cute (rewarded gestures). Explain each scene & dialogue & tear & smile throughout. Tell them how it was supposed to end well else there wouldn't be a movie to make of it. Then show them the movie interspersing it with "This is what I was referring to". The chances that this sensitive person will respond with all heart is fairly lower than when s/he was not made aware of the build up of emotions & climax. We are capable of that. We can want to stay under water to see how long we can hold our breath & emerge with a burst for fresh air. We love the rush of a culminating moment of emotion. We also love chocolate cake. And if you noticed, the child was just pleased, not emotional & all heart.

While all perceiving is through the window of the senses, how we assimilate all that flies in & how we synthesise it is individual & often not predictable. But repeatability is not the point here. Our innate sensitivity grooms & smudges what we receive into a notion & understanding of life creating a bouquet of responses which go by the name of "I". If the "I" cannot be located at a precise point two inches north-west of the navel, how did we ever get to decide whether "I" feel it in my heart or mind? You must have noted that I do not use the word brain save in the need to identify the collector of sensations. It is not the heart but a mix of how we hold perceived incidents & memory, allowing the same to curdle in the earthen pot of our soul (something that acts as a substrate as it doesn't govern what we receive as experience/events), that makes us who we are, both in demonstrations of intellectual ability as well as emotional capability.

If it is our brain's (and associated minions') window that gathers, if it is the soul, time & chance that brews what was gathered, if it is purely the assembly of life's events viewed through the entirety of being that creates a unique perspective, then where did we create the dichotomy between mind & heart? If we are comfortable saying that the heart thinks & vivisects, then let us simply address our varyingly dual personas as heart. If we cannot imagine the heart as inventing a new device, then let us say the mind feels & the mind thinks. Or pick another word! Just one!

The Gateway to all Beauty

The birds chirped not that day. Like the bulge of a river nearing an estuary, they knew that something unnerving was around the bend of Time, but what it exactly was, their unimaginative minds, knew not. This was the day when all changed and even the sharpest minds & most sensitive soul would fail beyond that bend of hours to conjure the fabric of breath before that day.
The Devil was on his evening stroll. He looked at the animals slinking behind trees & wondered why they would be so uneasy in the presence of He who guarded their souls from corruption. He walked to a fawn and placed his palm on her cheek. Going down on his knees, he held the fawn in the curve of his breast. All the other animals rushed to Him as did the flowers & leaves. There wasn't an infinite which could fill the expanse of his soothing, murmuring bosom. Behind the shield of his reassuring calm, he realised it was time to meet His brother.
It is strange how the ways of the Devil are. Movement is exaggerated & in that Time is created. Where he wishes not Time, the landscape transforms into the image in His mind while Time awaits a cue. Where he deals only in beauty & joy he withdraws not his pacifying tunes. Never has man known beauty to arrive & cease to be so except over time. When beauty is realised, it stays thus. In that realm, which is unbounded, in that moment, which is unclocked, in that breath, which is never exhaled, one unites with the Devil to recognise & realise beauty & calm like nothing of mental machination can summon from the most austere depths of arrogated chastity & holiness. Hence, the animals & flowers & leaves & the sagging bark of the eucalyptus tree felt a great peace against the caressing love of the Devil although the Devil was at that very instant at the doorsteps of God.
God was visibly disturbed. Not because he sensed his brother's presence in his mansion & certainly not because he had witnessed the affection of the creatures of the world he assumed was his. He anyway didn't care about the souls of animals or insensate beings. He had met Zinkalov in the morning & was unhappy. Zinkalov, along with Setura, was God's favourite creation. Zinkalov was given the mind of God's smile & the muscle of God's sweat. Setura was given the beauty stolen from the clouds (and what we see today up in the sky are just the breaths of clouds which once sashayed on this earth, gorgeous, spell-binding & voluptuous) & the eyes of the river Bhira. How the Devil collected the souls of these dying creatures is another tale which I will let Sdirut, the crow, tell you some other day. It should suffice to say that Bhira, who once was the vines to the heavens & home to all who smiled, nearly died without her eyes, till the Devil rushed to her side & gave her wetness in exchange for her eyes. Now do you know why rivers are wet?
Zinkalov hadn't done anything wrong. He was largely incapable of it. The Devil himself had tutored him. All he did was hum a tune when he had finished running many furlongs with Ghiyu, the leopard. Such was the joy that filled his inhuman heart that he couldn't help but break into a song of unheard tune. God was passing by & that sight & sound made him nervous.
The Devil walked into the room where God flounced between couch & window & floor. Light broke & coughed & shadows missed the lee of the world. At the sight of the Devil, light frowned & darkened. God turned to acknowledge his brother.
"Come, my blood."
"Greetings, one born from the same chalice."
"You fail not to remind me of misty days, Devil."
"One must only forget what was an illusion, my brother. The rest is the substance of our very marrow."
"I am not in a mood to argue, brother. Sit & drink some wine while I fret."
"Such wine wets not my throat, brother. Tell me, what ails you?"
"Zinkalov!"
"But he is your blood, brother."
"That doesn't rid him of the ability to crease my forehead"
"But how can one, whose every act is pure joy & entertainment, worry you?"
"Speak not as though you don't know, Devil. It might well be you who taught him these secrets."
"If my tutelage has produced one who is happy & sufficient, then I will never let it be a secret."
"Did you teach him to feel beauty?"
"I beg your pardon!"
"Did you teach him to open his heart & soul to beauty?"
"Most certainly we were heading that way."
"He seems to have overtaken you, dear brother!"
"Bravo!"
"What!? You revel in a creation that supersedes you?"
"Most certainly!"
"How ridiculous! Why create if you are to be made obsolete?"
"But how do I become obsolete?"
"Because he now knows how to experience beauty. He knows how to smile with the Sun & Moon. He knows how to sing with Bhira & her minions. He gallops with Ghiyu & revels in the breeze that caresses his visage. In all this, he doesn't need me. Why! He doesn't even need you. How could you teach him to be thus?"
"But why should he need you or me?"
"Why then are we needed? We who are the creator of all things, creator of Zinkalov & Setura - the most magnificent of all creations - will be soon forgotten as all these creations of ours revel in beauty & joy not needing us anymore. What is a God who will be forgotten?"
"But you will still be loved, my brother. Zinkalov, in all his sojourns, fails not to love you or laugh with me. Setura too shall learn to ride the winds & become fruit & fish while returning to her originally conceived form. In none of them will she love you less. What then worries you?"
"To be loved is less flattering than to be needed, Devil."
"And to be needed is more acerbic than to be hated, brother."
"What do you know! You need no one & no one needs you."
"Which is why I know."
God hurled a vase at his painting of tomorrow's sunrise. He shrieked & howled & trembled in rage.
"Shut up, Devil. I cannot allow my creation to not need me, to not funnel all their joy through me & only when I allow it, holding it back from them when I deem fit often for no other reason than to test their love for me."
"And that would prove what? That they do love you? That they don't have the capacity to love you through all storms? That they will love you only when faced with trials?"
"Whatever it proves it will provide me with their love & deny them the right to seek anything devoid of me."
"All it will prove is that you need them."
"How dare you!"
God in his rage flung his thunderbolt out of the window at Zinkalov & Setura as she began to learn from him to hum. In the blink of an eye God's creations were turned to ash & Devil smiled, for ashes are better than the bound. He left the mansion of God knowing he'd have to return soon to soothe God.
A sparrow's flight passed before the Devil decided to return to the mansion. As he walked in, he heard God's laughter & the bile rose to the tone of it. He ran up the stairs only to find God staggering over the balcony wall. The Devil rushed to hold him back & saw two creatures more beautiful than Zinkalov & Setura roaming the gardens of Eden. They were shaped beautifully & smelled like fresh dew. He also noticed that all trees were rooted to the ground & fish were not chattering on the swings but had taken to hiding within Bhira.
"Good evening, my brother."
"Devil, Devil! Aah! Just the one I want to see. See! Behold my finest creations, my brother."
"They are beautiful."
"That is Adam. That is Eve."
"When should I start tutoring them?"
"Never!" snapped God, scowling.
"Hmmm"
"I have taught them all that they need to know & also instilled in them great gratitude for being created."
"I see that the trees do not fly anymore."
"I needed something to create their mind with."
"And the chatter of fish?"
"That is my most remarkable trick, Devil."
"Whatever it may be, you cannot keep them from being tutored by me. All creatures have to be tutored by me. That is the agreement."
"Go on, teach them your stuff."
"You seem considerably at ease with that proposition."
"Because I am, dear Devil."
"You do know I will teach them to enjoy beauty & experience joy & love each other in ways I just invented over lunch. I will teach them ..."
"But in all that teaching", interrupted God,"You cannot teach them to do what will be their unbecoming & their very chain that tethers them to me."

The Devil looked puzzled & then remembered the fawn's shivering frame. He turned pale & so did all the roses in the world.
"No!"
"Yes, darling Devil. I did it."
"No!"
"Yes, yes, yes. I have taught them words. I have taught them language. I have taught them how to create more & more languages. I have taught them how to create scripts & sounds. I have taught them all the decadent ways of wanting to put their experiences in words."
"No!"
"Yes, my sweet not-so-clever Devil. They will soon write paeans. They will write tales & allegories. They will write poems & bleeding sonnets. They will usher in ballads & songs to cry their hearts out & woo their latest fancies."
"No!" whispered Devil, struggling to hold the balustrades.
"Yes! Your favourite love shall be quaquaversal degenerate, aching to be captured in words failing which, it shall be deemed non-existent or irrelevant."
"How could you!"
"Oh! I can do anything, dear brother. But you must listen to the masterstroke. After every slice of beauty captured in words, after every object is wrapped in sounds, when all that is felt is hurriedly scribbled as patterns that others ache to learn lest they miss out on "beauty", there is the lagniappe of my genius. When they do find or invent words for all their bursting feelings, they will always find them inadequate. And then, dear brother, they will turn to me whom - alone - they cannot express in words."
And the Devil turned to look at those two unsuspecting souls through teary eyes & knew what would become of him & the rest of his world.

Letting Go

So here it is, in front of me, glaring at me with all its vulgarity and perceived ugliness. I detest it with all of my being and have found means to achieve that seeming heaven. Please note, gentle reader, I have the means to rid myself of this sore, I hold in my hand the key to the door through which I can send this wolf running out of my life and I am simply holding that key and staring at it. There is an immense pain that fills me at the thought of letting go of this miserable thorn embedded deep into my flanks. The thought that I might no longer have this, with which I have spent a long time, makes me disappointed and my heart grows heavy with the weight of that realisation.

Nevertheless, I open the door and watch this witch walk away through that door and in her wake I feel pain. I feel a deep longing for what might have been possible had this headache not become thus. An urge rushes to my throat to call out and ask it to stop and undo all that made it sickening and gross.

But I don't. I let the snake slither away and watch with amazement at the sheer volume of remorse that shrouds my heart and mind. How could I, who hated this city or woman or job or bike or some such disposable entity (and what isn't!), yearn for it to remain with me after having suffered untold pain in my association with it? It amazes me.

Recently, a friend of mine too went through something like this as she quit her job with a company which hardly gave her anything and treated her poorly. I had also gone through similar pain when I left a company that I so eagerly wanted to quit. But on the day I quit, I felt innumerous misgivings and sadness and I kept turning around to see the building fade behind others as I drove away.

Stupid Me

As I observe laconic people around me, I wonder what let's them stay silent even when they have something to say. One thing I have never mastered is to stay silent when I know what is right. Knowledge is poor shackle for the tongue. I recently came across the quote below and loved it.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people. ~ Seneca

And for all of you who feel that it is politically incorrect to call dumb people dumb, wait for the next post.

What is it to relate?

We are always in a relationship, aren't we? But what does it mean to relate? This post discusses just that. For a change I decided not to type out the post but write and scan it. Been ages since I wrote with my pen (Sheaffer). My handwriting is abysmal. Please be kind and tolerate this idiosyncrasy of mine.

This is way past my bedtime and hence, I haven't proof-read this piece. Without a spell-checker and proof-reading, there are bound to be errors which will embarrass me tomorrow, but I'd rather live with that than not write with my pen. Hopefully future posts will have less opportunities to complain.

I realise that this makes my post less searchable (hence, not available through Google), but it's ok. I have only a handful of readers and myriad viewers who land on this blog by mistake! :-)

You might have to click on each image to read them (another inconvenience). Some readers had asked to know the writing process. I really thought there was something like that. When I read the Original of Laura, I thought perhaps there was something similar that happened with me when I wrote. I thought it would be amusing at least to me when I later visited these posts to see how the writing emerged. I have even numbered the paragraphs so that I could re-order them in case I need to. As you see, there was nothing done to that effect. Perhaps my poetry posts would have something interesting.

Understanding Duality

A recent post found Pingu quote from the Hua Hu Ching (supposedly an unknown work of the Lao Tzu) and Parvati present her views on it. For those who find it tiring to look through the comments, here is the quote:

How can the divine Oneness be seen? In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe- inspiring miracles? The Tao is not obliged to present itself this way. It is always present and always available. [When speech is exhausted and mind dissolved, it presents itself. When clarity and purity are cultivated, it reveals itself. When sincerity is unconditional, it unveils itself.] If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most ordinary things.

Portions within [...] were not quoted in the comment though they form part of the original text. Lao Tzu is by far the only historic individual whom I shall ever consider to be a true teacher. There might be others but I don't know of them.

Writings on the Tao tend to stick a knife in their selves. By claiming that knowing the Tao cannot be described or constructed, they have made themselves open to ridicule, but Chunag Tzu would proclaim that state of being ridiculed to be a Taoist state. Let's not complicate things.

Parvati-ji responded as follows:

If I may intrude with a response to what you have said, here, Pingu,which essentially proclaims that all is the Divine, there is another quote from the Gita where the Supreme declares that the Divine on Earth is what is perfect. Perfection here, as clearly stated in all the verses starting from the 20th to the 40th verse of Chapter 10. Do read all of them starting from this link to later ones.

http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-10-18.html -

To give just a glimpse,

" Of the Vedas, I am the Sama Veda, of the senses, I am the mind, of the commanders I am Kartikeya, of the reservoirs of water I am the ocean, of all the divine sages, I am Narad Muni, of lordly elephants, I am Airavatha, of humans the King, of all the animals I am the lion, of the birds, I am Garuda, of the swift I am the wind, of the wielders of weapons, I am Rama, of the flowing rivers, I am Ganga, of the poetic metres I am Gayathri, of the seasons I am spring, of the Pandavas I am Arjuna, of the sages I am Vyasadeva etc etc.

" Certainly wherever and whatever is majestic, beautiful or magnificent, you must certainly know that all these manifestations arise from but a fraction of My Glory."

# I suspect that there are two fundamental truths of spirituality,

one is what you have quoted from Lao Tzu as all is the one Divine Consciousness, and the other is that on Earth and in manifestation this Divine Consciousness is a constantly evolving perfection in time and in space, whereby a present state of 'imperfection' can be criticised or if not criticised or condemned, its inferior qualities as exhibited by its errors and ill consequences in rightness and fairness can be discarded and fairer means that lead to a better harmony, but in truth and rightness can be expounded.

1. All is the Divine. This is an essential fundamental truth and an absolute

2. All becomes the Divine in the most outward and external manifestation too. This is in time as a growth from a lesser way of being to a more enlightened way. God too becomes in matter and material life.

The second fact justifies every single thought, discussion, debate that elucidates more and more, better and better ways to actually enable the Divine that is everything to actually be seen thus in matter too.

If mentally I understand that all is the Divine, and hence keep silence or kill my soul when I see ugliness or unfairness, assuming that evil too is the divine, then I disable a chance for me and my context to be redeemed in a greater light.

# Maybe the fact that I see unfairness and want it to be mitigated or annulled is also the divine and hence justified...

# Sorry, Eroteme, about this too long a response, maybe repetitive too, in your space. But Pingu's comment evoked such a comment from me. Do bear with me...

No apology required, Parvati-ji.

To summarise, there is one perspective where everything is the Divine and another where somethings are the Divine (or tending to the Divine) and some not of the Divine. The latter notion is also the source of the God-Devil duality. In the grand scheme of things, perfection and imperfection are both necessary parts of the whole. What Pingu quoted states just that; what Parvati-ji clarifies is a response to "Ok! So what do I do with that idea that all is the Divine?" Her words are a response to an often reached conclusion "Since everything is ok, let me do anything and everything and then simply call it the Divine and get away with it."

The Tao resonates with me and hence the notion of good and evil seem illusory to me at times. But there are so many moments when I see the vile clearly and am repulsed and propelled into action, thought or reflection. The Tao is not against action. The Tao is not against anything. To be one with the Tao (a state which seems so impossibly near to be true) implies a clarity and a freedom from conflict. The Tao guides the sword as it does the wind.

The problem arises when the ignorant mind clings to the notion of "All is the Divine" and then suffers the daily travails of facing the "bad" things. We want to believe that everything is the Divine but what do we do with this wretched liar who just robbed me of all my life's savings? What do we do when the immoral politician has taken over my piece of land? What do we do when someone jumps the queue? How can all of that still be the Divine?

Here we need to visit our notion of the Divine (which Pingu has quoted and Paravati-ji has elaborated on). We still believe that the Divine is beautiful and only the beautiful can be the Divine. Perfection is considered to be the Divine while imperfection isn't (though the Zen notion of wabi-sabi looks at things differently). We seem to view that all things imperfect are not-yet-Divine and in the movement from imperfection to perfection there is a move towards Divinity. Even the Gita says so!

Who then created the imperfection that seems to be more abundant than perfection? Why? Then is there a creative force on par with the Divine force? And questions keep pouring forth once we go down that track eventually ending in a conclusion that the Divine "itself" has been incapable of creating a perfect world and has created a world full of imperfect entities which need to continuously move towards perfection, or the Divine! Many souls are comfortable with that notion because the "worldly" acts of tests, challenges, missions etc. resonate with that idea of separating an entity (at the outset) from its perfect state of being and then making it difficult for that entity to become perfect.

But notions are just that: convenient beliefs to provide solace or security. They are convenient because one needn't dig deep to understand the duality of the Divine and the non-Divine. One needn't have to face Truth, least of all, deal with it. Who has the time, especially when one is busy trying to get that promotion, or that apartment or something equally important? Who has the time or energy when juggling a million tasks and responsibilities?

So we often tend to take one of two sides: The Divine is beautiful and all things ugly aren't (yet) the Divine (and the common Japanese view of individuals born with physical disabilities is one such example) OR all is the Divine (like the various new age gurus and cults say though they essentially end up creating a following which believes that their guru or their God is the true Divine and the rest is all humbug). The first category face lesser questions (not because there are fewer question but because there are fewer people willing to think deep enough to ask questions) and the second category face the questions like the ones Parvati-ji hinted at: If everything is the Divine, then is raping someone also a Divine act? Hell! no.

Confusion arises in actions and events (that seem to be related to an action). People see something happen and aren't able to explain it. Be it rape or thievery or the IPL cricket matches, we aren't able to explain how someone can do something like this to another person. Hence, we either call them all evil or smile over clenched teeth and repeat endlessly that "All is the Divine".

Action which stems from clarity is different from action which stems from ignorance. In the latter case it is one's own pettiness which drives action. When there is clarity then the action to protect a child from a murderer is as effortless as breathing. Once in that state, action and thought are not different nor motive forces for the other. In that state, the Divine is not a goal but the Divine simply is. In that state, when one is one with the Tao, Pingu's quote is obvious and clear.

Since most of us are not in that state, we seek ideals and goals which we can work towards. Krishna's words jar in my head more than they create resonance. Such a tone is the root of all misunderstanding and ill-formed thought and action. A lay man will shun all assuming that only that which Krishna said He is, is worth looking at or possessing or coveting. In the hands of fools, threads of gold will either be sold for a view of the Sun or they will be futile ropes to tether cows. Krishna is talking to a rather confused person who in the middle of the battlefield is busy raising queries which takes people a life time to understand. Krishna is immensely crafty and knows exactly how he needs to deal with a gentleman like Mr. Arjuna Pandu. After having told him so much and clearly that there is nothing in this entire universe which doesn't stem from Him and doesn't return to Him, Arjuna still asks Him for the "glories" of Krishna. To me, Krishna's bit after that sounds like pure pep-talk. He eventually ends it with saying "Amongst the Pandavas I am Arjuna" which hopefully did the bit! At the end He still wonders (perhaps with frustration): What necessity is there for you, O Arjuna, of such detailed knowledge and so many examples? (When I have been telling you that) I support this entire universal manifestation situated in but a fraction of Myself.

To miss verses 2-5, 7 -11 (yup, all prime numbers) and only focus on verses 21-38 (though I love what He says about feminine graces in 34. I really wish I could ever meet a girl who had those!!) is presenting oneself in a manner no better than Mr. A P. To invoke the Divine grace for a pep-talk is rather shabby. Had Krishna told Arjuna that "Well, I am the Divine and am the cause for everything. I am you and Duryodhana. I am the cause of your birth and of this war" then I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Arjuna ran back to Kunti telling Krishna to fight it himself and end it also by himself. Arjuna needed to know that he had the Divine on his side and that he was part of a worthy cause. Neither did Arjuna know nor did Krishna care to tell that to fight was being one with the Tao, because the war was meant to happen. Krishna with all his claims also died an anonymous death at the hands of a hunter who mistook his heel to be a deer's face! Krishna didn't simply vanish into thin air (like Master Ugway did). He died the way he was supposed to. Krishna wasn't without conflict (he actually charged Bheeshma when Arjuna let loose excuses for arrows, only to be calmed by Arjuna who was a few days earlier calmed by Krishna). He was surely one with the Tao for most of his life on Earth. So one cannot and should not take Krishna's words out of context, the context being

If we leave Krishna and Arjuna alone, we need to still come to terms with the following questions:

• Is it possible to stay without an awareness of what happens around us?
• Once we are aware, is it possible to be without recognising it as good or bad?
• Once we recognise something as good or bad, is it possible to not react?
• If we react, is it possible to figure out whether it was meant to be or not?

I will leave the reader with these questions, because it is sometimes best to live with questions than have answers.

Convenient Dichotomies

I am often confused with a misogynist. It is as much a tragedy as my frequent association with being a misanthrope. I love women too much to ever hate them and I have immense faith in mankind (not human beings) to despise them. But fairness rules and my role of a paladin brings me brickbats. All in good cheer!

A recent trip with friends (mostly acquaintances) convinced me that women find it extremely convenient when guys fawn over them and will receive every act of subservient yielding, with gusto though quick to proudly claim that they don't ever seek favours from men. I am fortunate in being allowed the escape of a not-so-mute observer and thinker and hence am rarely called upon to perform the job of a lackey or to bestow condescending favours. The women in the group were delighted to have doors opened for them (innocuous) and bills picked (cheap) and luggage hauled (dainty) and errands run (too important) by the boys that I found the whole thing decreasingly obnoxious and increasingly amusing. The girls actually had the boys fetch their shoes from the shoe rack outside the temple. The boys had no sense of self-respect and were more than happy to be at the beck-and-call of their ladies. The ladies, without bothering to wonder whether they were taking advantage of the "niceness" of the boys, enjoyed their well-served existence. I imagined reversing roles: If girls were ordered around and tossed off when the job was done and made to run errands and taken "advantage" of because the guy knew that she had a crush on him, how would the "forward" thinking world look at it? They would call the men chauvinists, brutes, old-fashioned, conservative and few other things depending on their mood and mettle of their tongue. But these girls are just called cute (though amongst themselves some are bitches and some are desperate or more, again depending on the pH level of the tongue).

One thing that I never understand is the notion of footing bills. I pay when a woman accompanies me (tragedy lies in the fact that I even pay when some guys accompany me) and if I don't then I am cheap. If the girl was not earning a living or something like that, one might even consider that as a passable case (but then how do you explain the ready money available to her when she has to buy things for herself like trinkets to hang from her ear or that mobile which rings in so many tunes?). I find it immensely pointless that women who earn their income believe that they should never foot the bill. If the assumption is that their mere presence has paid for their share of the evening's expenses I can't laugh enough. I have rarely been with a girl who leaned over, slapped my hand off and took the bill (one girl was from West Bengal, the other lives in Bombay and one potentially solid girl now resides in Mysore). I always wondered whether they never felt cheap walking out of a restaurant without even offering to go dutch.

Pampering a girl is different. I think it is merely a special case of pampering someone you like (love is a convoluted topic). I pamper my nephew, my kid (I call her that because her parents call her my kid), my dear friends, a few wonderful women whom I have met (and they are genuinely few enough to count on one hand) and most children. My lovely friend who has been with me since we were 11 and 9 respectively, and who now is a father to lovely little girl, is someone I love to pamper. Pampering in these cases is not a stereotype and is hence, treated differently.

A dear friend of mine said, "Come on, E. Guys enjoy doing these things for girls. It is one of the small pleasures of life." I think he meant "small pleasure of the Mating Game". I had written a long article (and I am accused of never writing anything short!) about the Mating Game when I was in school. It is lost (because I wrote on loose sheets of paper) though you surely don't need an article to bring to light what is commonly available to an interested pair of eyes. I accommodate the Mating Game as an inevitable ritual performed at various levels (from Casanova to Seth Ganshyam Das of Tijoriwali Gali in Allahabad whose Mating Game starts and ends in a burp) but when it becomes a stereotype, graduating into a sense of etiquette and hardening as a norm of social life, then, my dear friend, it becomes annoying to my senses. I have lent my jacket to a girl (and I still have a picture of her) though I cogitate that I would have done the same for a frail framed guy, too. I have done things which clearly fell into the bucket of the MG (btw, that is not what M.G. Road in Bangalore, stands for) so the issue is not about the MG. It is about what groups of people are "expected" to do.

Recently, on a trip, I noticed how women (on the train) assume that they will be treated specially. They assume that someone will surely help them load their luggage or give them their chosen seat. A woman had actually occupied my seat and when I arrived told me to take the other one elsewhere because she wanted to sit with her family. Of course, if I don't mind. Point is, isn't it decency to stay in your seat and then ask instead of occupying first and then offering an option to me!? Even in queues (and once at a petrol station) women seem to assume that it is ok to rush ahead. A friend once told me "Come on, E. Try standing throughout the day on high heels and waiting in a queue!" What? Women were born with high heels? So if I wore riding boots with 3 inch heels, I will be allowed to the front of a queue?

There is no questioning that women are not often built for physically strenuous jobs and have to juggle (often, though not always) multiple roles and responsibilities. But these are individual choices. As much as a child cannot be delivered without the due gestation period so required is the necessary physical, mental and psychological abilities for a job. Dagny Taggart didn't use her womanhood to get the job done. It was sheer ability. I simply adore women who can do a job the way it should be done without acting cute and batting eyelashes. It is, hence, an individual's choice. If work in the quarry is not your cup of tea then don't go there. To join the quarry and insist that women should be given greater privileges and shorter work hours and lesser loads to lift is ridiculous. So be it with a job as a scientist in a lab. I will not give you the culture in my petri-dish just because you are 6 months pregnant (what is growing in the dish is at least my effort). If you can't juggle many things, choose. There are tonnes of women who give up a family for the sake of a career and conversely. There are men who also care for the family and buy the grocery and take out the garbage while putting the baby to sleep. Does the woman of the house get up to give him the only chair in the room?

So a woman likes to have doors opened for them and seats on buses offered to them but will not tolerate a man saying, "They are weak humans." They want men to be chivalrous while they cry sore about women's lib.

A woman will love to have her dinner paid for, and her movie tickets bought but will hate it if she were told that she needed his money or was dependent on his money.

A woman enjoys receiving gifts and baubles and surprises but will not accept that she can't even think of getting her guy some nice gift as a surprise. After all, "What can you get a guy? They are so boring!"

A woman likes to quote the traditional role of the male as protector and provider till he has expectations of her; then she quickly chants the virtue of the modern liberated man who doesn't hold old-fashioned notions of roles based on sex or creed. Equality is, then, something that makes sense only when it is in favour of one person.

Men are not to be pitied as long as they enjoy being fools. It is when women assume that men are there for doing their work or earning for their entertainment or free for their whims that the otherwise simple acts in a relationship appear vulgar. So be it when men make similar assumptions of women (though most men don't think that their wives earn for their entertainment, some think that their wife is entertainment!). At the risk of sounding repetitive, it is about a sense of Rightness. When there is respect for the other person, when there is a genuine affection for the other person, when there is respect for oneself, when one truly cares about the relationship and the various facets to it, there is action borne out of a genuine goodness and Rightness which doesn't crumble to petty convenient exploitation or, as a girl aptly said, "timepass". It would be such a delight to be with a woman who would take me out to dinner, too. Or help me pack my luggage or let a guy sleep on her shoulder or lap (has to be some other guy because I can never do that!). Or bought me a bottle of ink because I have just exhausted mine.

Clash of Intentions

The past week has seen me get rid of two horrible diseases (one less so) in my life though the laughable irony is that the diseases left my system with least effort from my side. Good health (literal and figurative) is indeed a joyous state of living.
The past few weeks/months have helped me confirm an old theory of mine: Problems are not unsolved because they are inherently impossible to solve but because people (involved in the problem) refuse to pursue/peruse/adopt solutions. So the problems, in themselves, are not intractable, but it is the people who do not care for the solution or do not wish to come up with a solution because it would require them to adjust a bit.
The past few weeks and months presented me (in a sudden rush of friendship) with several opportunities to observe this theory in action. Unfortunately, a few friends of mine were going through problems (some being marital) for which they were unable to find solutions. I love solving problems starting from unclogging drains (and this can be a tricky problem depending on what is clogging the drains) to handling excessive salt in a dish to wives and husbands unable to live together in a marriage. Somehow they all appear alike to my brain. I recall the time when back in college I was considered to be an Operating Systems guru/lover and I would tell my juniors that every problem of life can be solved by some algorithm that is found in popular operating systems and even fielded some standard problems (and then love was the most popular thing!!). One junior even asked me to apply any one algorithm to my life which was devoid of a love interest and I applied the theory of selective filtering, just that the filters were numerous or actually just one: A female me (and I haven't met anyone in my age band i.e. my age +/- 8 years, who resembled me more than 50%).
Anecdotes aside, I still believe that life's problems can be understood and resolved as one does understand and resolve problems in operating system design. Belief apart, I have proof too. My friends back in Pune had heard enough of those algorithms. There are some unfortunate applications of them too. Like creating a deadlock until one process relinquishes hold (for whatever reason) whereby the other process receives rights to proceed (with living a good life).
But the difference between OS problems and human problems is the clash of intentions. Processes and CPU registers do not have ulterior motives or ego hassles. The system assigns priorities and deadlines (e.g. in a real-time system) to them and they stick to them. The system has ways for bumping up priorities or lowering them (priority inheritance and inversion) and the processes comply because each process perhaps has an appreciation of the greater good of the system and faith in the Controller (in this case, the user). People and life's business have more issues and ulterior motives than good and clear intentions.
As an example, let me quote (and paraphrase) a discussion I had had with a rather wise and lovely friend of mine. We were discussing the issues in joint families (I was reading Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees and love it) and she said, "If one brother earns Rs. 1000 and the other earns Rs. 50, though they might pool it together and let their father (head of the family) wisely decide on expenses for the entire family, there will always be the feeling that one deserves more than the other." This was an observation which didn't require assent or dissent. She then proceeded to pose a rather interesting perspective, "But, if the brother earning more left and established a separate household and his wife was not an earning member, he would give into all her demands although she contributes Rs. 0 to the wealth of the family. The disfavour that his brother earned for making less money although he too might have been equally useful in other ways (as his wife is) is not attributed to his wife who earns Rs. 0. The paradox is that one turns against one's own blood whereas one showers more on one who is not one's own blood and has had lesser association." Neither of us assumed that one's own blood warrants anything, but it is common human behaviour to be closer and more tolerant of one's own blood simply because there is a longer association. "Mother" and "father" might be an exception in this account of things. This is something that would not happen in the world of operating systems. If a process doesn't generate enough output and hence, is left suspended (given fewest CPU cycles) so would any other process which generates the same or lesser output.
Apart from the visceral repulsion of applying algorithms, statistics and differential algebra to human activities, there is no reason why they can't be. Marketing, for instance, is using these very tools to understand consumer (human) behaviour and position products accordingly. We'd, perhaps, stop buying Colgate toothpaste if someone told us that we are being plotted on a graph, along the X-axis! The whole world of robotics and androids is essentially that. An ego-based reaction is not sufficient basis for the lack of truth or applicability of something.
But more than the applicability of algorithms is the observation of (what I call) the clash of intentions. People who are not sufficiently involved or caring will not solve a problem as it is against their interest. A lady is willing to do anything for her child but not for her husband. A man is willing to do anything for professional success but not for his family. I am willing to do anything to get my lunch perfected but not for bungee-jumping!
Our clash of intentions creates problems which perhaps were never there. Two people might be comfortable with each other till one person tries to get things done her way over and above the relationship she has created with her friend. Here is where one thing becomes more important than another because we don't care about the latter or have taken it for granted. It is when that latter "thing" stirs and raises "its" preferences when a full-fledged problem is created. I have relatives who simply give into their wives' every demand. So the demand (which if placed over the relationship) is not the problem because the husband yields. If the husband found it incongruent or against his principles and takes a stance, even then it is not a problem. If the wife, on being made aware of the stance, refuses to budge then a problem is born. Since a lot of men would rather avoid a problem to taking a stance based on values or principles, a lot of marriages continue. Since a lot of women (though not the urban kinds) in India give in to their husbands' wants there is a lack of problems. Neither of them are solutions but the system is in a non-threatened state. The only solution is to have an aligned clarity and an understanding of what is good and Right. Anything other than that is either an escape or a postponement of a clash of intentions.
A recent conversation (and that will be another post) with a very dear friend and 2 of his team mates took us into the night (00:15 hrs) which is way beyond my sleep time (21:30-22:00 hrs). Here too we discussed issues with the work environment and professionalism per se. When I go over that conversation, I see the same thing emerge: clash of intentions. One person means well and guides others but the other person takes that for granted and is unprofessional because the guidance will perhaps not yield the kind of tangible benefits that s/he is used to receiving.
Hence, given that problems (amongst human beings) is nearly always a result of clash of intentions (I am not considering murderous humans and psychotic individuals), any attempt at solving such problems without resolving the clash of intentions would be implicitly futile and abortive. And the surest sign of a clash of intentions comes from the total lack of involvement and caring of the individual(s) (who are part of the problem) in resolving it. Tragic but common.

What is Happiness? Understanding Happiness

I was about to start out writing: "As Aristotle said, " and realised that nearly everyone is tickling him in his grave (but then he was cremated, wasn't he?) when they start talking about happiness. Tonnes of people define happiness as this or that. Some try to measure it, some brush it off as incapable of measure. The gurus and priests define happiness as the complete surrender to this or that deity. A successful businessman calls it achieving ones ambitions. A sportsperson thinks it is winning races and setting records. A writer thinks it is winning the Nobel Prize and being featured in every list of the "Best Books for...". Artists are mostly narcissists so they will always want to get more. Then there are the feel-good guys who live off self-help books and cliches making statements like "being able to do something for someone and not expect something in return." Excuse me? How about loaning all your money to the slums of Bombay? No tax benefit! No citation! No mention in any newspaper! Forgotten and un-thanked! Yeah, right! And what if there is no one around you wanting your assistance? You'll never be happy? Aristotle had his views on happiness and so did Epicurus, but then, so does everybody.

Happiness, unlike calculus, doesn't require a foundation in order to be vivisected. Everyone in their first class of psychology has some answer to "What is happiness?" while everyone in their first class in operating systems has little to no appreciation of the LRU algorithm. We all think that we are entitled to an opinion about such a commonly existing facet of life. The problem lies in getting lost in the various forms of human response and the various states of being human which seem to confuse happiness with satisfaction, solace, adapting etc. Hence, the responses to "What is happiness?" which talk about achievement and attaining something are less about happiness and more about satisfaction and sense of worth.

Satisfaction is primarily an instance of stimulus-response. I see pizza, I want, I get and I am happy. There is always a want underlying the possibility of satisfaction. When the great monks of Mystic Mountain say that want (and its more determined cousin: desire) is the root of all unhappiness, they probably were being too strict, but there is a grain of truth. For instance, I want a lifetime membership to Mystic Mountain, but membership is not available in the manner we can understand so that leaves me anxious (or maybe not, because I am still trying to understand anxiety). Once I get it, I am satisfied or maybe not like the chef of a famous French restaurant who wanted to desperately get a Michelin star and slogged day and night but once he got it, he didn't feel the elation he thought he would because he started wondering "If I could get it then perhaps most others can too. Hence, this is not something worth seeking in the first place." Hence, my advice to people: Never say "The food was wonderful" to a French chef; always keep frowning in a French restaurant.

Here are two thoughts that I am going to elaborate on (and I am notorious for the elaboration bit):

1. Happiness is that whole-bodied state of being which raises us to our higher Self through an experience or realisation which is timeless.
2. Happiness is inversely proportional to the distance between our expectations and what life deals out to us.

The sharp-eyed reader would immediately note that these are two levels of what is conceived as happiness. Well, yes. (2) addresses what the unconscious man perceives as happiness and once he is conscious and fully aware (not just of himself) then there are no expectations and hence the distance becomes zero and therefore the possibility of a "whole-bodied state of being which raises us to our higher Self through an experience or realisation which is timeless" is higher.

I say "higher" and not permanent because the whole notion of always being in a state of happiness is, I think, an Utopian ideal which causes greatest unhappiness. As the human beings we are, we cannot always be happy (hence, Ugway was not a human being but a turtle). We shall soon evolve to understanding the notion of permanence in happiness.

In a later post, I will reflect on the question of "How can I be happy?". I will restrict my thoughts, in this post, to the understanding of happiness itself. Perhaps in that understanding the aforementioned question is laid redundant and pointless?

Momentary joy or convenience is like a puff of asthma medicine: it doesn't cure but provides a relief. Relief is an escape though not all escape is bad (like in the case of asthma). Psychological escape is nearly always shallow. Our inability to enter a state of happiness and joy is the reason why we need American Idol and drugs and Deepak Chopra. We fill our minutes with entertainment and intoxicants (of various kinds) because we do not know how to be happy. A person who is happy will not seek out entertainment. A person who is happy with himself or his family will not be club-hopping. So pleasures, entertainment, ephemeral joys etc. are not indicators of what makes one happy. They are indicators of what we employ to escape the need to recognise that we are unhappy.

People often believe that helping others, forgiving others, reaching out to others or as the quote at the outset said "being able to do something for someone and not expect something in return" are similar sources of "high"s. They aren't what make people happy. They are what make an individual satisfied or pleased with themselves. Why is it that no one recommends seeking help and donations as a source of happiness? Because it creates a sense of being at the mercy of others or being dependent on others. Hence, the opposite is better, viz. bringing other people to your mercy and generosity. To me these are parasitical entertainment: entertainment which requires the existence of a less privileged person whom I can shine on and implicitly establish that I am holier than thou.

Several people say that happiness is about having a good family, good health, good wealth and the like. The problem is in defining "good". No man is ever without a disease. No man has ever had a family where the wife has had no problems or the children, difficulties. Setting our expectations really low seems to be a trick solution but that assumes that we think we can trick Fate. Even if you do not believe in Fate, you have to accept that your definition of good which said "no uncommon illness" takes a massive beating when you are suddenly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. There are no causes per se. You have nothing to blame. But you still have it in your pancreas.

Reconciling or seeing the silver lining is our response to the lack of fulfilment of our expectations. You wouldn't search for a silver lining in a silver bowl filled with diamonds! I think this simply keeps us comfortable in our state of having expectations and then tricking the "system" by finding alternate explanations with a smug grin which says "Gotcha! You can't make me unhappy!" This is the worst form of ignorance and stupidity and is frankly no different from the drugs people take. Damn! I failed my exams, let me sniff some dope, Aaaaah! feels so much better. I am happy. See? You can't make me unhappy! Hence, I hate the Chicken Soup Chronicles.

But we are human. We will always have expectations and wants and desires. Do you think we should all become robots wanting only to be charged occasionally and maybe given an extra jab of memory once in a while? Well, no! Unless you fancy moving around with jerks and swivels. I really loved those dance moves of several years ago with forearm going up followed by a bend at the hip and then back up and a twist and the next arm going up and... no, not the usual Sunny Deol dance routine!

Expectations spring from our sense of what should be. We are here and we should be there so let us get there. The expectation is to reach there. I earn $3000 a month - I think $10000 is a respectable number - I set expectations of earning $10000 someday. As one might note, such expectations keep shifting which motivational gurus call "setting the bar higher" and what I call chasing a moving truck's tail-light. Perhaps that is what makes a writer want to be popular, win awards, win international fame, the Nobel Prize, more fame, etc. This route implies that happiness is never attained as the place where you thought you would find it has now moved to Miami.

But isn't expectation the foundation of all progress? Isn't it the bedrock of all industry and technological advancement? If we recognise the difference between need and expectation we can brush off most of that. We need some way to preserve our food from decay, hence we invent the refrigerator and manufacture it on assembly lines: not expectation. Expectation is primarily a psychological driver.

Ok, then isn't personal growth the result of expectation? Isn't all individual advancement based on expectation? Should we drop expectations and stagnate where we are? Dropping expectations as a intellectual decision is bound to lead to stagnation. Not so if we understand how progress can be achieved without expectations. Here is where I would turn to Nature. No tree grew out of expectations, no beautiful cherry blossom became so out of expectation and no cat elegant from a pining to be so. Predators are not powerful because they expect to become so and preys are not alert because they expect to be so. Nature grows and progresses organically and effortlessly and that is a powerful foundation for growth. A man who can organically perfect his trade and develop it will grow too. Great poets have lived and walked this Earth without expecting to become poets. Emily Dickenson is one such example. I have personally known artists who simply enjoyed their art and "grew" in their own style.

It is when our sense of growth is derived from outside that our expectations morph into what others expect of us or of the ideal person as defined by others. To learn from the world is not inappropriate but to hitch our wagon to the motivations of the world is a definite recipe for being unhappy. The flip side is an adamance to refuse all rightness and goodness that should percolate into our bubble of focus and growth.

Which brings me to my buzzword of this year (and I think the rest of my life): Rightness. Happiness is essentially impossible in the life of a self which hasn't understood and realised Rightness. Let me create a life (in words) to understand how Rightness is vital.

A young man qualifies himself based on what he thinks the market wants. He gets himself a good job. He seems to be happy before he starts getting bored. He engages in his hobbies, going to movies and CCD with his friends. He hopes to get a girlfriend to fill the emptiness in his life. He decides to buy a car for convenience and as a symbol of growing. He switches jobs, moves cities, makes new friends, thinks he is in love and loves his new 42" plasma TV.

All the while he feels that he is happy before he realises that he is not and "something is missing". He joins the Art of Living course (and this is where I begin to avoid him) and thinks it is ok. He reads Deepak Chopra and other great gurus (and I am beginning to avoid him more). He talks to his friends and is fine when he seems to have achieved all that they have or more and is immediately disappointed when he learns that his junior in college is already married with a swanky pad in uptown Delhi (if there are such parts). He is still living on rent in a 1BHK (because living with other boys is not what people at his level of growth do). He meets people who seem to have found their perfect job. He reads about those guys who quit their PhD and became a mechanic or a guy who had a great job as a writer before leaving it all and going off to Japan (and also finding his love) and feels miserable for not having anything like that in his life. He meets an old friend who has a similar job and a decent wife and 2 playful kids and wonders why he didn't get that (hint: he didn't marry). He returns home and receives news about his bonus and is happy. He take a few friends out for dinner at the new Chinese restaurant and the meal is great. He calls home and his folks are happy and his mother suggests that they can now conduct his sister's marriage with some more style. He is happy and says "Of course, anything for Guddi." He is happy now and sleeps well.

A few days later he Skypes with a friend who tells him how much fun it is working in Vienna and how he should get out of stuffy India and explore the world. He opens his trunk full of pictures and news clippings of various places in the world and sighs deeply. He realises that he is bored with his work (as in, who wouldn't be entering data and filling out forms and conducting meetings?). He speaks to his sweetheart who sympathises with him and he feels better. He decides to apply abroad, does so and eventually reaches London where he has a similar job. The environment is different. He makes new friends, buys a lot of cool stuff (which you don't get back home) and is enjoying himself. After a few months, he misses home, is bored with his job, goes to pubs with his friends and comes back home to his wife (oh! yes, he is married now).

I could go on but it wouldn't help beyond this point. This is pretty much how life is for nearly 80-90% of people whom I have met. Some go on achieving whatever they plan for and everyone assumes they are hence, happier. Some don't and everyone assumes they are less happy.

Compare this to a guy who goes through the usual college and job days and one day realises that all that he has is a bunch of activities, some nice and pleasurable, some not so nice and not so pleasurable. So he sits down under a mango tree (because the chance of something nasty falling down from great heights is lesser and usually whatever falls is tasty) and puts things in front of him. He starts looking at his life and wonders what is he doing. What is his real self in all of this? What is it that makes him happy (or makes him think so)? What are the things that he cannot stand? He watches his entire life (so far) and looks deep within. As he grows familiar with himself, he recognises the truth of things and his actions. He recognises how much he let the outside world influence him and how much he avoided meeting his inner self. He is more comfortable with his individual self and is able to listen better. No, this is not something that can be done in 10 minutes of your lunch break. Once he is more comfortable with his self, he is guided by it and hence, proceeds on a life which is in tune with his entire being. As he lives this visceral truth he begins understanding the way of life itself and the illusory nature of wanting Happiness forever at all times. He starts recognising the inevitability of mishaps and annoying incidents. When someone cuts through the queue and buys a ticket out of turn he does get angry. When someone cheats in an exam and passes, he is annoyed. Over time he recognises it is unfairness and deception and cruelty and indecency that annoy him and not the individuals per se. When someone uproots his saplings and runs away he builds a better fence. He doesn't allow for such incidents to bother him for long. Gradually he faces the part of his self that is annoyed and disturbed by such incidents around him and understand what in him causes that reaction. He begins to connect more with the Divine and in the process is able to realise the wholeness of things. He is still doing work that he enjoys (be it by giving up his PhD or shifting to Japan). He is still connected to people of all kinds but he is no longer dependent on them and hence, their actions leave lesser imprint on his mind and life. When someone cheats him and gets away with it, he is able to see how this piece fits into the entirety of things and is able to act accordingly (lodge a complaint with the police or not bother). When he finds a job unsatisfactory he is able to realise it, drop it and accept another job which is in tune with his being (might be a mechanic's job or a writer's or a banker's). When he find a person poisonous he is aware as he is with an ingenuous person. In being like water, he is not cut by any sword.

People ask him whether he is happy and he says "I am" and they think he meant "I am happy". He probably meant "I, simply, am".

For it is impossible to be happy (as we commonly define it) for long. We keep altering that definition based on circumstances and knowledge. With such a shifting definition of happiness, it is impossible to realise it as a permanent fixture because it is in our frame of ignorance and inadequate knowledge.

The only way to be is either in ignorance or in union with the Tao. To others, being one with the Tao might mean being happy (though the cynical few might scoff and feel that such a man is without a car or delicious caviar or has never been to Vegas, which is true). The sage is neither happy nor unhappy as they are not qualities that exist in that realm. Ignorance breeds a sense of happiness or unhappiness and we might find means to escape from one for a long period of time. He can keep frowning all the time but still be one with the Tao and hence neither happy nor unhappy or both. He could well be smiling. He approves of nothing nor disapproves of anything because he is aware. He is useless and in that, he useful to the Tao. He tills the soil and takes the grain to the market. He doesn't cease to wash himself or his clothes. He eats his meals as per the needs of the body and not in need for an experience.

All this is fine you say (actually, I say) but we are not sages. We don't wish to be sages. We wish to enjoy the possibility of this world. Why shouldn't we? We wish to eat at the best restaurants and wear the finest threads and ensure that our money is not stolen. We do not wish to be paupers just to avoid being thieved. We do not wish to remain clerks in an office. We want to become officers and more because we are capable of it. We want to have children because we are virile.

But that is not what I say (though you say it). A sage is not one without experience and growth but one whose experience and growth stems from a source which is not a mere decision. In building his foundation on the Tao he is without reaction (which is creating expectations based on one's capabilities), whereas those who base their life on wants and desires will perhaps get it (and be satisfied) or not (and hence, feel dejected). He is in the flow of the Universe and hence has nothing to gain or lose. You, on the contrary, will have a lot to lose and gain and hence, be happy or sad in varying proportions. In standing up against Fate you have greater disappointments and agony. By walking with Fate, the sage has nothing to feel disappointed about. You have memories to recall when you were happy. He has none. You have moments in your life you wish you could wipe out. He has none. No, he doesn't have amnesia, too.

For everyone who is not a sage, happiness is a random occurrence. You might think that you are currently happy because you planned on all the things in your life which led to this happiness (you slogged in college, worked hard, invested wisely, bought conveniences which help make life simpler and so much more better) but the lack of any disruption during the course of your life is what makes your happiness random. There are thousands of people in the US today who can claim the same energy and effort but their wealth is all gone now. They aren't happy. There is no difference between their lives and yours except for the chance timing of misfortune. You might find happiness in walking along a lake or through the woods, but what happens when you return home? What happens when you return to work the next day? What happens when your child meets with an accident? As long as happiness is the absence of misfortune and mishaps, so long it will continue to be a random occurence. The minute one is comfortable with that, a search for happiness is futile in its intent. One can only look inwards and that would (possibly) lead you to becoming a sage which you are not interested in.

Hence, happiness boils down to the prolonged recurrence of convenient events and incidents, not requiring us to face challenges which do not give us a high or sense of achievement, not to mention the absence of misfortune and mishaps. To some it is good family, good health and good wealth (convenience), to some it is leading organisations to making more profit(convenience + achievement), to some it is building a railroad system (yes, I am referring to you Ms. Taggart). Given that it is so random, pinning our entire purpose of being on it seems wasteful. Still we do.

Even for those who wish to remain non-sages, the answer to the question of "What is happiness?" is personal and hence, has to be framed based on one's own wants and desires. In order to make that longer lasting, those wants and desires would need to be based on a better understanding of our motive forces which requires introspection and a deeper understanding of oneself.

How, then, can one expect a generic answer (except for the one I gave in the previous paragraphy which sounds cynical)? Still, we ask ourselves that and we discuss it with others. We would like to be happy now and not in 30 years from now. We want to check-in to great hotels and buy tickets to that rock concert (seriously? And you still wonder why you aren't happy?). We still want to be rich and famous. Honestly, so do I. Well, all the best.

Dear Abhishek

I had written (for the 1st issue of Alvibest) this little piece of fiction as a letter from a father to a son. One comment that I loved in response to this piece was "No way could a 26 year old have written this!". Another dear friend thought this was a real exchange although the 1st page clearly says "Fiction".

Establishing Rightness

It all started with that conversation. Actually, it all started several decades ago when I was born, but that is not how we mark events.
R: "Don't tell me, E! Seriously? Yuck! Such horrible people!"
E (that is me): "True."
R: "I can't believe such people and families exist."
E: "Now you can."
R: "What happens next? What will he do?"
And I began sharing the plans that our common friend had made before embarking on the need to establish Rightness. Commonly, one mixes Rightness with Truth, Honesty, Protocol and a few other things and is lost in the tangle of words and connotations.
Few days later, a friend of mine complained that instead of dropping a Rs. 2 coin he had dropped a Rs. 5 coin into a beggar's bowl. He apologised to the beggar and asked him to return it in exchange of what was originally intended. The beggar refused to return what he had gotten out of chance.
He: "Damn it, E! I know I was being stupid, but isn't it decency for him to return it?"
E: "You expected a beggar to return what is not his?"
He: "Yes!"
E: "Then why did you seek to give it to him in the first place?"
He: "Pity, good will, the need to share."
E: "Then you will always have to pay more."
These two conversations and my meditation on a facet of life, leads me to ponder aloud.
Often one is faced with the concern of establishing the Right in various spheres of our lives. A Zen Master might wonder about how the Right can ever be established by anything other than the Divine/Tao/Rightness, which makes sense. Nevertheless, the land has her laws and people have rules because one cannot count on the Divine taking matters into Its hands and with this world having a generous proportion of vulgar scoundrels one is often faced with the need to establish justice and uniformity. There will be thieves who will walk into your house, act sweet and steal from under your nose and then claim that the goods actually belong to them. How many people have the patience to let the Divine resolve this? The Middle East would have those thieves decapitated and to some that is perhaps fair punishment. One could wait for Divine intervention and then find none, for which the Hindu scheme of thought has created the notion of Kali Yuga (Age of Iron): nothing will be as it should be. This justifies or rather seeks to explain the humiliation of the fair and righteous and the prosperity of smugglers and rapists, this justifies an early widowhood to a good girl and the pimping out of one's own daughter for a handful of gold (we often call them gold-diggers), this justifies the destruction of a Howard Roark and the pedestal for the Elsworth Tooheys.

I am frequently lost in the question: Can Rightness ever be established? Is there a point to it? Can we, while living in the midst of beggars and thieves and looters (Ayn Rand's choice for the worst amongst human beings), subscribe to Rightness and adhere to it? How common is the occurrence of a good intention, an ethical intention, an honest action gone wrong and twisted around by vulgar snakes forcing us to seek refuge in the intelligence and honesty of others? One would build a road with the genuine intention of creating easy travel and transport only to be condemned by the villagers of having ulterior motives and castigated. I have personally encountered horrible people who have twisted their inaction, laziness, lack of concern, lack of moral fibre into a virtue and into the oft used weapon of "being human". Such lowly people are a misfit in an ethical world. They resort to sweet words, drama, lies and falsehood in order to survive. They will take and keep taking (literally and figuratively) for they are looters who do not care for Rightness.

While fairness and justice can reveal a course of action, Destiny can choose another, though that choice doesn't mitigate the Rightness of things. Often one mistakes Destiny's ways to be a sanction of one's choices. I love the Sandman series where Destiny's role is beautifully sketched. Destiny is blind (and I like that volume where Rose tries to clarify to Dream that it is not Destiny that is blind but Love) and ensures that what is meant to happen will happen irrespective of the pleasantness or lack thereof. While one can carefully reveal the Rightness of things one cannot expect Fate to take sides. I think this is often the greatest torment man faces - the inability to come to terms with the actions of Fate which seem to come about irrespective of the course of action one takes and the underlying intent.

Allow me to consider each question independently and in an order that makes sense to me.

• Why should Rightness be established?
• What is the most vital context in which Rightness must be established?
• How could/should we respond to the environment?
• Is all the effort worth it?
• Can it ever be done?

Why?
Rightness is not negotiable. Rightness needs to be established because the absence of it is pure chaos which the human race cannot manage (which is not necessarily bad and at least, as The Joker puts it, "Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!"). It is perhaps out of the fear of the absence of Rightness that Rightness is sought, but Rightness lends a flavour which is unlike that which arises from achievement or cunning. The only reason for establishing Rightness is itself. One can list a million reasons for why we need sunlight or water but Rightness doesn't find in human beings a necessity to quench. Nevertheless, Rightness is vital to the harmonious coexistence with Nature.

What?
The context is the self transforming into the Self. Hence, Rightness can never be sought in an entity outside of oneself else Rightness would cease to be so and morph into a gimmick or a realisation based on popularity votes. It would be tragic and defeatist if one had to seek votes to decide whether something was right or not. Hence, Rightness cannot be sought or demanded outside of oneself. This doesn't mean one refuses to recognise its role in the common spaces between human beings, but the self is most vital context. This might sound like an escape from the seemingly original intent of this post to arrive at a strategy for establishing Rightness, but no, Rightness must be established and the most vital context is the self. Once it is established in the self, there is a channel for Rightness to permeate the space around that Self. When an individual acts as an impediment to or an inappropriate carafe for Rightness, what then is there to expect of the world outside such an error?


How?
By observing oneself. To observe oneself is to rid oneself of the need to measure, to compare, to tally, to seek approval. When we truly observe ourselves, we watch our ways afresh. We do not compare it with an ideal, or with our beliefs or with norms. We simply watch and understand what is it that drives an action. I can watch my decisions and realise that my choice of taking a hard stance is simply my need to refuse looters to have things their way. My discomfort with liars and knaves leaves me with a visceral want to oust them from my life. I don't see it as good or bad nor wonder whether it is politically correct or what will others say or will I have as many supporters as the looters do or anything along those lines. This doesn't make for a justification for knee-jerk reactions but to be able to observe a sequence of actions and be able to realise where it all springs from lends clarity and with clarity, one has an opportunity to adhere to Rightness. Clarity alone is impotent esp. in the world of human beings. A friend often said that clarity to a person should be like a flame shown to butter - there is no choice, transformation is inevitable. Unfortunately, that is not true as far as human beings are concerned. One can heap facts and figures in front of a person but fail to convince a liar of the truth in them. They will stick to their illusions and condemn you for pursuing them with facts and truth. They will even resort to escapes and drama and blame you for "numbing" their senses with incessant calls to Rightness. Human beings can never be butter (and perhaps that is what encouraged the Vedic rishis to offer butter to the sacrificial fire). Hence, by observing oneself one has the opportunity to befriend Rightness.
One would have to get over one's fears, one's hubris, one's false spine, one's ego to be able to walk the path of Rightness with the clarity gained. How should one drop one's fears or pride? There is no step by step procedure for that though the best means is to observe the world. One should observe it to see what is, what was and hence, how the world accommodates the transition from what was to what is. In this, there is great learning especially about the impermanence of things and ideals. There will be no man-made object that will outlive this world yet the world gently accommodates all mistakes and misunderstandings. In watching and observing Nature there is a lot to learn, esp. that our fears our primarily imaginary or irrelevant in the grand scheme of this world. That our pride achieves nothing on its own and it doesn't serve as sufficient trophy after we have created something.
So, in observing the self and Nature one gathers the rudimentary equipment to adhere to Rightness. Those who aren't interested in Rightness will only talk, and lie and invent more lies to justify their inconsistent stories and play this silly game of them against themselves and clap hands in having won the game although there was no one else playing. They will create movements and expend energy in extolling the virtues of mediocrity and vulgarity because only in such a world can every rat be virtuous. They will appeal to your sympathy and not your respect for one can be gained through coercion and cunning while the other can only be gained by mettle and intellect.
For one who is established in Rightness, there is no guidance necessary to establish that Rightness outside of him. His is a fire that will burn wrongdoers or himself - because in death there is no loss and with death ends the journey of the Right. That fire which has burned Right till the death of the torch is a true flame. Such a man refuses to accept injustice and will not comply. Laws of the land might bind him from fear of facing Truth. People might ostracise him out of fear of having to look into their own souls. But Nature will nurture him. The only way to establish Rightness is by:

• Sharpening the blade of the self by observing
• Refusing to accept the vulgarity of anyone around us
• Sticking to truth and honesty
• Sticking to a ruthless pursuit of fairness
• Standing up for what is Right
• Considering no loss greater than the loss of kinship with Rightness
• Never giving a man more or less than his due
• Never accommodating a vile individual
• Never gaining from the association or favour of a vile individual
• Never acting on pity
• Never supporting a parasite
• Preferring wisdom to mental intelligence
• Preferring mental intelligence to emotional hooks
• Preferring nurturing and support to parasitical coercion
• Understanding the difference between being alone and being lonely
• Comfort with being alone (for there is no greater companion than the Self)
• Willingness to educate a seeker about the path to Rightness

Please note that none of this is a decision. As long as it is a decision it is in the play of the mind and thoughts which can cunningly sway this way or that. When the individual is transformed into an instinctive response along these lines, he is free and Right.

Worth?
I am afraid this is something each person needs to evaluate for their own self. Often I am plagued with this question: All that I am doing, all the world that I am fighting against, all the relationships lost, all the enemies gained, all the rebuke, all of that, is it worth it? Why not be like any other average human being and have a snake for a brother, a rat for a friend, a fox for a peer, a leech for a wife and a wolf for parents, and laugh and be merry and live like nothing matters? Because it matters. Because it matters to me that I sleep with the confidence that I did not cheat nor did I accommodate a cheat. Because it matters that I have represented myself with utmost honesty and have shown liars their place. Because I have only kept with me what I have truly earned and castigated thieves and beggars from my life. Because when I walk down the road and someone comes up to me and says, "E, I know you'll tell me the truth. Is it safe to do this?" my entire being chimes with the bells of Rightness as I guide him with my entire being. Because when I look back over my life, I realise that for all the mistakes committed I have learnt and moved closer to Rightness. To me it is worth the acid-test. You need to figure it out for yourself.

Possible?
It is and hence, we still have the world going good. Had the world been devoid of Rightness and people who strove to achieve that, then we would have liars and thieves attacking each other's throats for the little gold that clung to their neck and food that hadn't descended the gullet. Undoubtedly, the commonest form we find in the world is of people who are sporadically right and decent. But there are people who have mostly lived a Rightness which is commendable. My friend's father is an example of a man who has lived a life without giving a bribe, without accepting one, without tolerating a liar and cheat, without cheating anyone and a lot many items on the list above. Although he is fairly far from what I call Rightness, he is closer to it than most people I have met and interacted with. This post is dedicated to him.