Feelings

 

One way of looking at history of mankind and the progress of culture that has happened in different parts of the world is to understand the influence of feelings and intellect on human actions. This is also reflected in each of our individual minds or thoughts and what we express as an output or base our actions depends on our internal impulses, urges, desires and a process of expressing those outwardly.

Again, the talk can start from philosophical point of view or an experiential point of view. So long as we take a form of a human being, we express our intent in many forms of actions. Fundamentally, as a tendency, consciousness vibrates and appears as force and matter. Having taken the form of force (mind) and matter (body), a sense of incompleteness is felt within us leading to urges or desires to become stable. This can be said to be a momentum of force leading to motion. The inquiry takes us to senses, signals, how do we analyze these signals, and how do we respond and the basis of all this – the belief in separateness and hence the compulsion to act. Thus impulse or desires is a tendency to express. Some may make noise, others may create music. As long as there is a ‘thought’ (even a single wave of any kind, no matter how subtle it is), there is some tendency to act or perform or express as a visible form. This tendency makes us perceive and cling to a form of existence. The entire effort of a philosophical approach is to make us aware of this tendency and to become consciousness itself, so there s no need of thought to arise, or vibrations to arise and hence no form to be generated. What becomes of us, is that we become universal consciousness present everywhere. Hence having become so, any kind of vibration can then generate any kind of a form. This realization dissolves any desires or compulsions arising from being fixated in a particular form of existence.

Now this force that we call our mind – displays properties of feelings and intellect. My feeling is that people express themselves by a combination of intellect and feelings - -one affects the other. Any change in either dimension also changes the other and they aren’t so strict compartments as is widely believed or a default position that intellect always will be at a ‘higher’ position than feelings. This means to relegate feelings to a lower level and that is quite worrisome, as a trend in society.

Let us take two realities in mind.

Feelings are spontaneous and they just exist. There is no purpose whatsoever for their existence and they do not claim anything to be achieved. Feelings can connect all human kind and they are beyond constraints of language, customs, clothing, built environment, gender and any human constructs. A question is asked - -what inspires poets, artists, musicians, writers to create a form of expression? Is there a particular situation that leads to inspiration? Is there a time involved in it? Is there a sequence and a process to be refined? Is there to prove anything? Is there a debate in it? Is it to be verbalized? Is it to be remembered? All such questions DO NOT exist when dealing with an artistic bend of mind and I would say that they need not exist. Such people are in their own world and they need not be answerable to anything. They remain unpredictable and they do not care a damn about any customs. They can also be empathetic and can see all creations of the world from that angle, since that is what they catch as signals. Do they achieve stardom or success or financial security? This question again, is pointless to consider, as they do not exist for achieving anything. That may lead their lives on a roller coaster ride and they may end up being materially very rich or poor or somewhere in between. How does one evaluate such progress of artists? It cannot be evaluated – this is the answer. However, their role is of fundamental importance to the society as they are able to demonstrate those thoughts that connect us all.

Now the above tendency can frighten the intellectuals. The intellect craves for analysis to achieve perfect control over everything. This will mean control over a particle to control over the universe. This obviously leads to stress. Questions of time, variables, sequence, intensity, repetition, order, predictability, difference, proof, evaluation, quantification, reduction, excess, variety keep on hounding the intellect - -a kind of an obsession. The intellect craves for expression and defining a purpose behind the expression. So there is a strong need for defining a ‘direction’ to impulse. Road maps and milestones and the shortest possible route etc engross the intellect. Then it is concerned about creativity and to find out how creativity strikes an artist and whether the same magic be replicated if the same conditions are repeated for the intellect itself?! “Are you getting the point?” – is what the intellect will ask you and you better reply in clear terms – either yes or no or with an explicit condition! Intellect always remains critical of everything. It needs to take a position and place a value on everything; else it cannot start any activity. The progress of such people is methodical, systematic, predictable, safe and mostly harmless, if the intent is good. By hard work and focus, these people do create stable material enriching conditions for themselves.

Certain individuals and societies are mostly feeling oriented or intellect oriented or a combination of both. Generally, developed nations may be understood as an intellectual society wherein the intellect is given the highest form of encouragement and all systems are defined by perfection, planning and control. What it does to the individual is another matter – which can be stated as complete robotic response and disconnected by any other phenomenon. Analysis will reveal that this idea of intellect governs the idea of GDP and Development or progress or technology. And this is what is aspired by billions of people around the world, starting from education and competition and proving oneself at whatever cost.

Societies based on feelings or having larger dimension of feelings seem to exist in a more softer, empathetic and organic situations. Their responses may acknowledge environment in a more humble manner and they will not care much for validation or proof. My guess is that all ancient knowledge and value systems are based from this approach and over the period of time, everywhere – this attitude and reverence for feelings and environment is replaced by intellect. This replacement of approach from feelings to intellect is reflected from environment to relationships to the definition of individual. Externally, it may appear that such societies do not exhibit any progress or do not have any voice of their own (seen from the point of view of the intellect). Indigenous, vernacular societies or the preindustrial societies live with such values. To know and understand these societies is to transform oneself in that manner and practice their values which have been formed from generations and are not limited to a person or a situation or time. Trust is important here than doubt. The question of GDP, development, material progress, technology (advanced or whatever that means) is secondary here, since the notion of environment is more important that the individual.

It will make sense to give up the craze for control over imagination and the necessity to constantly prove something and achieve something. It is not going to lead anywhere in terms of mental peace. If someone says something and challenges something and disagrees with your point of view, does that really have to hurt you? If you do something, is it only by your own credit or by some larger hand of Nature? When you claim to be busy, are you being arrogant to others? These and many other questions need constant review.

Strangely, the debate or compulsion to express will not end by intellect. That burden is of intellect alone. To justify our actions is another such burden. And more one imagines justification, the more the process of creativity is thrown out of the window. Creativity is not a matter of concern to feelings but to the intellect.  Let us leave the matter of creativity to feelings and refinement to the intellect.

Three Stories

 

There are at least three stories that can be pondered repeatedly.

The first one is about the nature of existence and where does one get an impulse for action? This story deals with transformation of our state of mind, from believing in separateness to a universal consciousness that is the intangible omnipresent truth beyond any dimension of space and time, hence beyond perception. Regardless of the “situation” that presents to “us” (or which we have constructed for us), the above transformation can happen for each of us. Hence this story will present dilemmas of the mind, what is mind, how are thoughts formed, role of the senses and perception and memory and constructs. Decoding of thought will lead to subtle waves or vibrations that go beyond known boundaries of matter or force and finally reveal consciousness within and without. One can go through the intellect or feelings or meditation or action. Fundamentally then, whatever one sees and thinks is an outcome of “vibration” in consciousness. Somewhere down the line, the force gets reflected as mind for us in a matter called body. Almost at all moments of our life, we mistake consciousness for the mind and body and hence take our perceptions and thoughts for reality. It is a kind of reality but the absolute one. Consciousness is absolutely still. Force within it cause vibrations to create a web of space-time phenomenon that is seen as motion and change and matter in various forms. The “web” is the illusion that everyone is embedded in. The web is created because of physical and psychological dimension of consciousness. As long as we are in the web, we express this tendency of space-force-matter and keep perceiving signals and keep clinging to these. At a human level, we attract particular thoughts, keep worrying, fighting, arguing and justifying because we believe that we are different from other life forms. This belief is ingrained in the web and hence the memory of the absolute is lost. So there are desires, compulsions, fears and insecurities. And we then keep running. What is the answer to this running around? The answer is to be discovered within. That may involve any act, any thought and any method.

The two methods are of renunciation or non identification with a thought and compassion for all. Thought means existence or an imagination and imagination means experience. Can we separate ourselves from thought/ force/ memory/ imagination? What is character anyway? This is what we are dealing with so the imagination is seen as an “imagination” but it need not affect us negatively. It is similar to being aware of the dream. The second method is of compassion, wherein the circle of sharing and connectedness expands to an extent that love becomes unconditional – it is not dependent on any form or name. In other words, one overcomes the force of fear. There are no desires left and what exists is pure action. In daily terms, it is to keep sharing, trusting, believing, being non judgemental, being kind, being authentic.

 

The second story is about concentration. This is interrelated with the first story. Everything begins with an intent that leads to process and a product. Intent may be because of values, or compulsion or fear or some urges. Intent is a force that remains fluid and changing and is bound to create a result. Since force is inherent and fluid, normally the intent becomes scattered, flipping and disperses a lot of energy and whatever is thought about, is only from the mode of survival and nothing else. This creates noise – inside and outside. Incidentally herein one is concentrating on fear and so the output becomes fragmented.

The second kind of intent is about concentrating on fixed seeds of thoughts. Ideally this means to concentrate on those thought patterns that lead to transcendence. The ego needs to vanish or dissolve and there is no credit taken for anything. In any case, if one accepts the fact that consciousness is the mechanism behind all changing manifestations, then where is the room for any individual credit? There is no purpose for any situation or a community – all that is expressed achieves a universal dimension. This is applicable for thought or feelings or actions. The basis of concentration is this - -to focus our attention on a thought-process that expresses a universal intent. By doing this, what is created is “music”.

 

The third story is about inspiration. Inspiration is inborn and probably can be built. The best inspirations are somewhat like flashes of crystal clear visualizations. There is no answer to or a fixed method to how does one get inspired and what is the form of expression that the inspiration takes.  A musician sees music, an artist sees colours and a writer sees characters. They then make an artistic expression. This is also a form of concentration. Any inspiration takes a form, which brings us back to what do you want to create? Is it noise or music? There is constant creation based on inputs and synthesis done by our mind. The expression causes impressions on us. Hence inspiration, expression and impression become a cycle. This cycle can either tie us down to a body or liberate us to consciousness. The importance of good thoughts, good company, important issues becomes relevant in this story because that is going to give a good form to all above stories.

Hobby

 

Everyone requires a”hobby” – meaning something to be engaged with. There may not be any person (or any life form) who is not engaged in doing anything. In other words, action/ engagement/ thought / force is a default nature of manifestation. There is a “force”, hence there is matter to undertake action. Matter can also be seen as a medium of force itself. One can even say that force creates matter and this matter responds to other matter through the medium of force! In effect all takes place through different natures and intensities of forces – some behaving as external forces and some behaving as internal forces that appear as matter itself. Matter may also be regarded as a skin of perception. The root of all force at any scale and intensity is consciousness. This may be seen as the root ‘cause’ of everything. This may be seen as a tendency to vibrate.

There is vibration, so there is motion, so there is manifestation and therefore there is perception and response and engagement. The compulsion to remain engaged with action is because of the belief in a separate life form. We term these tendencies as desires, insecurity, incompleteness, fear and so on. Analyzing this belief further is the inquiry of the body and senses, the impulses or electrical signals, the mind stuff and the intellectual faculty to comprehend what’s going on. The physiological dimension and psychological impression of the same are interrelated. An electrical impulse will create an impression of thought and vice versa. Thought will create imagination or a construct of mind (force) which is tied down to performance or action. What we call as “mind” is a function of our life form. It is a particular form of force. This means that other kinds of forces also exist simultaneously and were already present even before we took on this life form!

Every minuscule thought or a wave creates an imprint. These lead to perception of what is good or bad, labels, judgements, expectations, competition, aggression and so on.

There is another way of looking at this tendency – that of a magnet. Physically, as consciousness vibrates, it condenses to form matter and as it condenses, imagination or memory develops. So memory, engagement or imagination or thought – these are modified forms of all pervading consciousness. Consciousness has contracted by vibration to create thought and a form. Being tied with a form and its limitation is a characteristic of thought, isn’t it? This feeling of being pulled down by body or outwards towards a situation by senses makes the mind” heavy” and limited in its awareness about existence. Then it only receives set signals and keeps becoming heavier. This is illusion or compulsion or a state of reality – all those judgements and expectations and desires and the ideas of pleasure and pain and all the running around. So the effort to be undertaken is to make the mind light and give off its steam of energy – to transcend the body, to become subtle and subtle, to reach the tranquillity of consciousness that is universal. This also means to make the mind “steady”, to make the force dissolve.

Above description of what happens in physical terms and psychological terms can be felt in our daily experience too. I am a person, I perceive a situation, a relationship, I get angry when things don’t turn out “my” way and I feel sad when things turn out of control and I blame something. Then I worry, I over think, I plan and I act and I expect. The entire life is spent by being embedded in the assumption of the reality of body (or a particular life form). Then I hoard things for want of security and it doesn’t offer any. I try to arrest change, but I fail miserably and then I give up or harbour hatred. What is going on?! Has this question been asked within us? Why should we feel incomplete and keep running and for what? The inquiry to these questions will lead one to spiritual lessons of consciousness and manifestation into space-force-matter.

The antidote to fear is compassion to all. This is described either in terms of renunciation (of the illusion or the extra baggage) or infinite expansion of love to all of manifestation so it does not remain limited to only one form of life. Both mean the same. Renunciation of things that limit our belief means expanding the circle of love and empathy to all life forms. This is the only working approach to feeling of bliss. By doing so, there is no clinging, no desires generating from a body, no expectation, and no hobby. It is just Being.

So give up expecting things. Any time is as much a good time as anything else. There is no perfect situation in the future nor there was in the past – all are imaginations. Past and future and the meanings associated with them are constructs as well. And any situation, no matter how much challenging it may seem, is good enough to realize our true nature. Next time as we perceive a situation or a person, consider what feelings we generate within us. It is not the situation or the person that is real, but the inner vibration that erupts within us. This creates an association. So again, the form of manifestation and its effect is dependent on the quality of our perception. Be still and there will be no reaction to anything –all will be blissful.

And finally, trust consciousness. Offer everything to this phenomenon and do not take any credit. Ego is the strongest of forces that needs to be curbed or dissolved. It is present at all scales of thoughts – to the obvious to the most subtle. So accept everything as it comes – there is always a reason behind these signals. Share and love – the ego will dissolve eventually.

Intellect and Tool

 

Intellect, as a tendency and its intent, can be approached from many angles. It is revealed to us what intellect usually does, by experience. Decoding the intellect takes one to the scope of the mind. When one thinks of mind, it is a force or a vibration of a particular kind that is created in consciousness that leads to matter. Consciousness is till. A unit of consciousness vibrates (or is embedded with the tendency to vibrate and appears as a force that creates matter and which is also affected or reacts to other such forces). So physically, we have a manifestation of a web of force and matter. Psychologically, this means perception – the force that perceives a situation (or recognizes situation) and analyses the situation to respond to it. In other words, manifestation is understood at a physical and psychological dimension – the effects of both dimensions seem interrelated.

Symbolically it can be said that the physical behaviour of phenomena can be understood because of the ability to perceive the same. I can perceive a form because of a quality of force I have already inherited, which represents a modified property of space. So what is this ‘I’ and who is this ‘I’? Decoding this question will reveal waves of vibrations/ subtle forces that just exist and which, if taken together as lumps and sequences, get perceived as “thoughts” for us. So generally, we are not the body or the senses or any of our reactions to the signals that the senses make us perceive - -the whole thing appears very real as the force has strongly clung to the idea of body and that it believes in being separate from the rest of creation. This leads to desires, fears, compulsions, actions, impressions, memory and entanglement. Force is so subtle that it takes enormous patience to dissolve itself – this may take several lifetimes. It is highly intangible so it persists. The impression of thought is at least felt, what about consciousness that does not even vibrate?! Force cannot catch it or feel it, since force itself is a modified form of consciousness just as water is different from vapour.

Our human form of existence has presented a situation - either of increasing entanglement or of renunciation of everything. Renunciation has got nothing to do with outer form of expression. A person may appear busy but may think like a monk. A person may not do anything, but may be extremely entangled with thoughts.

Anyway, the point is intellect recognizes signals and analyses the same. It compares, asks questions, infers and endorses. It doubts too. This tendency is a tool to be sharpened to achieve peace.

If the intent of the force is towards differentiation (thus leading to a compulsion to control everything), the intellect will analyse situation to discover millions of variables that it needs to control. It will forever remain in the cycle of discovering more and more variables and with each discovery, it will feel highly incomplete and will be anxious. The search will take it to the point where a unit of space also behaves as a wave and a particle. If the fundamental unit of space is so fluid, what is the use of any kind of control? This is the basic tendency of creation – formlessness to form.

If the same analysis leads to the acceptance of the fact of how the process of creation happens, then the same inference can be applied to state that we create the variables. So if the nature of mind changes, variables may not even exist. The mind has dissolved and consciousness has been realized. In this state of course, we are not talking of any form or body or sense – everything has dissolved in this kind of a state of being. It goes without saying that it is not a process of switching a button to on and off mode. Here we are talking of training the mind to reach subtle dimensions thereby perceiving things beyond our limited self.

It is said that this is done by decoding or by feelings or by actions or by a combination of all three. Daily actions for that matter mean, we meditate, have a hobby where we forget ourselves, we create a space that is not critical, we accept, we forgive, we share and we love unconditionally. Whatever we do, we do it without expectations and we offer everything as a tribute to consciousness. We undertake those intents that encourage such changes in our mind.

There cannot be any other motive, apart from this, to live.

Motion

 

To worry about the future is not required. Worry is a sign of believing in separateness and the expectation to control all things. The concept of control needs to be decoded. Situation is perceived by the mind. Mind and situation are not separate. Situation appears to be what the mind creates for itself. The more anxious the mind, the more tempted it is for controlling minute aspects of the situation. So, a situation may have millions of variables or none at all.

The two things that keep the mind engaged continuously is – the nature of the phenomenon or the mind itself and therefore the tendency to be critical and keep feeling incomplete about any moment of existence. What is there to feel incomplete about? Why is this feeling harboured by us? This inquiry keeps the mind continuously engaged and in motion.

Consciousness has no form, no force, no vibration and is completely still, in nature and physical form. The unit of consciousness vibrates to make wave and a particle (a unit of force and a unit of matter). These units clump together to make larger units of force and sets of particles finally leading to visible matter. In fact, all is a play of perception dependent on the scale of our current senses and mind. We perceive it as physical matter but is it really so? In above description, it can be agreed that by “coming together” of nature of force and matter – the physical universe is manifested. This manifestation therefore includes forces and matters at all scales (from macroscopic to microscopic).

The matter that we perceive, if seen under a microscope, is just a vibrating space. This vibration makes for all the forces and matters. This creates motions, particles spin, orbits are formed, systems are created and there is expansion, contraction happening everywhere. Symbolically, vibration creates a motion and results in the ever changing nature of manifestation.

The motion has a physical and a psychological property. In other words, all manifestations are “living” - they are self-aware, and they perceive one another and remain dependent on one another. The dependence is obvious because all have the same origin. The same origin means that if a particular property of force is changed, matter can change and so will other forces and matters dependent on this change. Hence any change in any point in space, affects the entire fabric of force-matter. Hence whatever we say or do or think, has microscopic and macroscopic repercussions.

Mind is motion. Waves of forces keep erupting or forming from a unit of space and that results in “feeling” of thoughts within us. This formation of waves at very subtle levels results in clumping sequences of thoughts and we then perceive our own existence and situations around us. By coming to this scale of existence, I am thinking on this subject, I am choosing to write about this and you are choosing to read about this…so it is a particular scale of existence formed by space-force-matter that makes me think and write about this. Else, who am I and where + what is a body? It is a state of vibration having physical and psychological dimension.

Situations and us – are not distinct. Since motion is inevitable, change is inevitable. We change and situations also change. If I accept this phenomenon of change completely, then I may see the futile attempt to ‘control’ things and expect a desirable output. The birth of desire and actions that are formed thereof, is a result of feeling incomplete and insecure within ourselves because of motion. This is the basic feeling the manifestation harbours. And thus it remains in motion. By training the mind, it will be realized that the motion can be made still. This is a journey of decoding thoughts, experiencing subtle layers of waves leading to expansion of mind beyond the known boundaries of the body and finally becoming consciousness. Once this state is reached, there is no force and no matter to displace this state. This cycle repeats perpetually for all.

At a day to day level, it means that the trigger for actions is a tendency that has deeper origins. At our level, we only perceive huge clusters of thoughts that we identify with our body and take matter as something real. Hence we remain fearful of changes as we think that the change is detrimental to our existence of body and mind. This feeling needs to be addressed continuously and by going deeper inside ourselves, by observing the creation of waves and remaining still, our response eventually can change for the better.