Direction

It is impossible to experience life without thoughts. Space exists – despite our perception! However, this realization comes only to ‘us’ – the ability to sense or argue that there ‘may’ exist a dimension beyond our definition of life.

All life forms operate under ‘what is to be done’; ‘how is it to be done’; ‘when is it to be done’; and ‘where is it to be done’.

But we, as humans, also encounter the question of ‘why’  - and I feel this is the most unique question that we experience. This is the basis of finding the purpose of life or understanding ourselves as a form of existence. This question is also responsible for all the developments or progress that humanity has made and this is also the question that leads to dissatisfaction. We are made to realize that we can think, there is something called thoughts, and our entire perception and action is dependent on the thoughts we harbor. We also come to realize, sooner or later, that we remain attached to thoughts – our identity or ego or mind. And this attachment is born out of our experience of birth and death. No matter what we do, the cycle of birth and death is inevitable – the dynamics of Space and Form is inevitable and from that perspective, there is nothing like ‘purpose’! This can be frustrating realization to digest.

Since we live however, we need to define a purpose or a direction to our existence. This is our effort to control thoughts. We may discover that thoughts change with place and time, they change from person to person, they change their states from positive to negative, they may have billion other attached thoughts and they continue to fill our minds. Thus, what are we dealing with? We are dealing with the experience of impermanence of our identities – the fluidity of it and its ever changing states. We fight for stability, but the concept is illusive, if we remain attached to thoughts (which indicate our attachment to mind and body). However, rejection or suppression of thoughts is also not advisable, because that will mean ending our own existence!

Hence, the dimension expected is only of acceptance and of service (or action without attachment). I don’t know why these questions don’t bother many other people and I don’t know why they bother me!

It seems very absurd at times, to try to rectify the ‘Past’ since the Time has gone and what is there to ‘rectify’ if all decisions were contextual? It seems absurd to try to prove our own thoughts, since what is it that we wish to prove anyway? Thoughts are thoughts – and they create perceptions. They are one of the phenomena that occur in the universe. Can we not accept this phenomena as it is? In other words, can we not accept our experience of life as it is?

If we understand that things will change eventually, can we not just live truthfully and trust the force of existence completely?

Simple

Times are mentally taxing. I am not referring to hapless coordination issues and management of billion things each day. This is, of course, default phenomenon that causes stress.

However, fundamental to stress is the compulsion to soak in trash, to verbalize each and every thought and to debate extensively to arrive at a minuscule decision! Indeed, I seriously doubt if ‘intellectuals’ really end up being mentally happy. By verbalizing things or phenomena, we may tend to unnecessarily complicate matters, and all it probably requires is a simple act of faith, trust and doing the thing. 

Ironically, by being complicated in the mind, the tendency to remain simple is being felt too difficult to consider! Being simple is to know oneself – values, beliefs. These values, although tend from the individual – are informed heavily from the environment. The more these values are informed by geography, the more simple and direct our responses become. The idea is to be unsophisticated. 

In life, what is really required anyway? I come to a couple of basic values in our actions – empathy, sustenance and respect for the environment, and emotional connect. Fundamentally, taking a ‘stand’ is not the issue here – it is transformation of the mind. Taking a stand requires critical analysis always (where one contextualizes a situation and a response and keeps on debating), whereas transformation deals with only pure understanding of ‘me’ and its relation to the environment. 

Transformation of mind involves increasing compassionate quotient within oneself and dropping off sophistication, separateness, debates, arguments, proving oneself and so on. It is being ‘silent’.

Thus, the question to be asked to oneself – is what should be the result of any research? And more importantly, are you aware of your state of mind, that generates some nature of thoughts, thereby affecting you? 

If you desired peace, what should be those thoughts like? What should they depend on? What is security of self? What is mind? And can thoughts therefore, not become sophisticated? Can they be direct – like the Sun or wind or rain? Can they represent purity of space?

Memory

The challenge of contemporary situation – especially witnessed in urban India – is related to the nature of memory. In other words, nature of memory indicates how we perceive ourselves as human beings and how we define our role as related to the environment. When people talk of ‘change’ (and the anxiety surrounding it), I am proposing that they are indicating a sense of disconnection. Disconnection with other people, with surrounding environment and with themselves. This is creating turmoil. The feeling of disconnection and disorientation is connected with Time - the interrelationship and sequencing of our thoughts to make sense of our world – it deals with perception. Therefore, in order to decode memory and its effect on our sense of perception, we need to understand what informs our thoughts and how we choose to sequence them and how these in turn generate a perception of the environment. 

Let’s look at the fundamentals firstly and then see the contemporary situation. Memory means attachment to our existence. The necessity of survival is an intrinsic impulse that we carry once we are born. With survival, we identify ourselves strongly with our body and mind. Body is a receiver of environmental stimuli – this shapes our basic orientation/ response in a given space (or place or climate). In sophisticated terms, it means clothing and shelter for protection. Body also means hunger – thus, we are compelled to act in order to secure food. Most of the activities involving food, shelter, clothing used to be communal (one could not do anything all alone) and that has shaped our individual and collective memories for centuries. Religiosity, community/ society, culture – all are our experiences that were formed automatically by being involved in the struggle for survival. If we try to review the nature of memory that seems to be created in such times – it has a strong component of environmental awareness, social experiences, cultural nuances – in other words – it is empathetic in nature. Ideas of respect, sensitivity, sustenance are a result of such lived experiences. The other character of memory in such times is inter-relationship (or wholesomeness) of a given situation. I know that the mango tree and the seasons, and the flora, fauna, myself, shelter, clothing, architecture are all interconnected and dependent. The ‘environment’ is ‘me’ and ‘I’ am the ‘environment’ – physically and psychologically too. In terms of expression also, utility, art and architecture are not really separate. The understanding of Time (as a part of memory) is also not linear, but interconnected with different phenomena and can be cyclic, or repetitive or just plainly ‘constant’. In other words, Time has lesser effect on collective consciousness. Hence, ‘sequencing’ of our thoughts is informed by cyclic processes observed in Nature, our age and collective wisdom (history + philosophy). The character of architecture, is local – born out of adaptation to local challenges of materials and skills. Space maybe communal, multifunctional and incremental. Privacy may even be non sophisticated. In a nutshell, the ‘pace’ of life appeared slow and one existed  - just like – anything exists in the universe (dependent on everything else).

Contemporary onslaught of digital world has disconnected this fundamental awareness of ‘us’ with the ‘environment’. The nature of experiences itself are now informed by virtual world itself – how can we even know the natural environment that used to shape our thinking? In other words, by continuously consuming digital experience, we operate and are dictated by the virtual reality and we don’t seem to perceive the “real” world or the context it presents to us. Perhaps the word ‘context’ (that used to mean existing environment or situation as we have perceived through our senses) now means a fragmented virtually created world view that has got nothing to do with the “local situation”. These fragments of virtual reality – fluid and constantly changing are altering our structures of thoughts and sequences and interconnections. If what is offered to you is fragments of different spaces and times, which is unrelated and random, and if you are continuously engrossed in consuming such data, what are you becoming as a character? If such fragments change fast that you have no time to interconnect different bits and pieces then what about your perception of Time? IS Time fragmented (and not interrelated or cohesive or wholesome?) If Time is fragmented, will that fragment your memory too? Will you become fragmented/ fractured? If everything appears “fragmented”, everything is reduced to some kind of “data” to be consumed and thrown away. Thus, we see each other only as “data”, or any kind of an experience is just reduced to “data”. The link between data and context now is not necessarily connected – but may represent a tremendous gorge. Our character thereby may become fluid, superfluous, erratic. 

Fundamentally, “memory” is all about anchoring oneself to the reality of existence and having a wholesome picture of life. In its highest state, such anchoring may lead a chosen few to a state of Enlightenment. As described above, the fluidity of virtual world and its fragmentary nature and its rapid change is not giving us sufficient time to create memory. We remain unanchored and with it, will loose out on the need to survive! 

Therefore, there is a need to create “anchoring” experiences.