The two kinds of beliefs and their common meeting point

I feel that atleast 99% of the people believe in a Personal God, someone who is supernatural, who is sustaining this 'world and beyond' with all his powers etc.,. They are so much devoted that they express their faith in multiple ways. Some people do not eat anything till they perform some kind of worship, they restrict their diet during festivals, devote some time for reading specific books everyday and many such things, which I am sure everyone would have experienced and there is no need for me to explain this in detail. And, if they miss any of these even on a single day, they feel so bad! All this is because they are so much devoted. They have so much faith- towards one 'thing', be it whatever.

I have also seen the second type- who apparently 'try' to go a step beyond, as it were, and try to seek truth (I am not saying that the first type dont) and do not believe in idol worship, saying that the people who are of the first type are fools etc.,.

I was just thinking of these two cases. I feel that the whole idea behind any of this kind of belief is- 'purification of mind' through concentration. So, how did man start this? The thought of disease or death is one thing that provokes man/mind all the time. He probably tried by first believing that- he is very small and there is something more powerful than him- which is not temporary, which is sustaining everything and the rest of the thought follows. He could have been wrong in the way he thought- but I am just trying to say that this could have been one of the ways in which he started interpreting.

Then it probably became difficult for him to think of something 'invisible' to his eyes, believe in this 'something apparently invisible'. But on the other hand, his strong belief in something supernatural and the effect of his mind over these thoughts, could have resulted in attributing certain features to his 'God', like- having many heads, hands, creating something out of nothing, all kinds of things which that pitiable small mind could have imagined. Different people thought of different things and all these thoughts exploded to give rise to a symbolic representation of these thoughts. And they started believing in this kind of form given to their thoughts. Now, they didnt have to worry that the God of their thoughts is 'invisble'. Because these very thoughts resulted in this form of God which they started offering their prayers to. Their happiness would have had no limits. Their devotion, love and faith would have had no bounds, for, they now supposedly saw their thoughts in a form in front of them! Theirs may/may not have been blind belief. Lets analyse it further..

They would have done everything to spread this great idea of theirs- which everyone felt easy to follow- worshipping these idols. Not that these people did not know that God is omnipresent. They probably knew that God doesnt just exist in these forms/idols. Or probably some of them even knew the truth. But, they had some special belief and devotion towards that form- which their own thought produced. Its a product of their own mind. Its not crap. Its not non-sense. Its their mind, essentially their mind. If you want to call it crap, then it is not the form that is crap, it is the mind that is crap. The very same mind that thinks of it as crap is crap! Yes, it is a vicious circle. It comes back to the same point- the mind! Their's is not foolishness.

I have seen people having such extreme devotion towards the forms. As they have believed and concentrated on this single thing all the time, their mind gets so much occupied that they see only this form- which is nothing but a 'collection of powers' according to their mind. So, do you see that there is an intersection here? Yes, again! Of the thoughts that their mind produced-- which went on to become a form-- which again influenced and occupied their own mind which produced it! It is a complete circle! This time, it is a neat one, a good one!
A complete circle!

So, whats the big deal? Yes, its a circle, so what? It is no great discovery that the things that the mind produced have indeed occupied it. But the difference lies in the fact that when the belief, the concentration, the love, the devotion fills up the mind so much- be it towards the personal God or towards the self, the mind sees nothing but "that". Such a man will never do anything wrong- for the fear of his mind being a witness. He will always think good, do good, - his mind is again producing this thought, as it were, that it is a witness. So, earlier, his mind was running in all directions like an uncontrolled horse and now it is being rightly controlled, the one-pointed devotion and concentration has begun. He sees the world in a different way. Because he sees the same thing everywhere. He does the same good to everyone. He sees no difference. I cannot explain this further as I dont know anything beyond this at this point of time! Basically, I guess he does everything right. It might not seem so to someone else. But, to his mind, it pretty much knows that he is doing the right thing.

Ok. So, where did we start from? We started from the fact that he does everything for the purification of mind through concentration. Hasn't he achieved this through the belief in a 'form' although he might have or may not have initially believed in the formless divine, in his own self, in 'that' which exists everywhere, infact the only thing that "really exists". But to get rid of the difficulty of imagining something formless, he created a form. Was this wrong? I dont think so. He just made his life easy, atleast those who followed this, thought so. If a mind can comprehend something formless, then great! But all our thoughts, for example, while reading a book, involve so much of imagining each instance in some form or the other- which is again specific to a mind. The culprit is the mind! (In the real sense, although it is not , on the outset it atleast looks like it is) It just cant think of any damn thing without associating it with a form, isn't it?
Poor thing, it is being made to act the way it does...

Anyways, the two categories of people that I mentioned initially (one who believe in a form and the other who do not) meet somewhere, with almost the same kind of effort put in to reach there and from there on the path is the same, I believe- the formless!

The "young" mind that was initially incapable of thinking about the formless is now capable of. The thoughts of this young mind that created the 'form' were useful. It actually helped. So, the mind is such an idiot- it needs so much of training to make it believe in what it initially did!!
It looks back at the path and finds that it actually came back to the same point, of course with a better understanding, more capable than before.
Actually speaking, the mind is not the cause of all actions. So, attributing 'action' words like 'looks back', 'came back' etc., is wrong. Because it "seems" like it is performing activities and being the root cause of everything. But, it actually does what "you" ask it to do. But still, for all practical purposes, to put my point across, I have made use of this rather easy terminology- easy to comprehend.

 Well, this posting was due to an extremely stirred up mind that resulted in a long "chain of thoughts" and as I have now stopped writing my personal diary, I thought of getting this off my mind in the "form of a few words", yes, again a 'form', to make some space for something else! Something more thought provoking, something much deeper in the real sense!

My first and last experience in...

I was intending on getting my hair curled- temporarily, though. And I was getting hopelessly bored at home over the weekend. So, I thought why not make my debut. I was really not too keen on it though.

And now, I was in the parlour...people started to do something with my hair. They had a tough time with my hair, I swear! Some were standing, some were sitting on the floor trying to reach my hair! I was expecting to see something too drastically different, with new looks and all..
Man! These guys have got real patience! I, for the first time realised that, unless you are hopelessly jobless, you would not want to go there again! It is such a real waste of time being there.
At the end of it all, my hair looked neat- with curls n all, came back home.. The curls lasted for about an hour, by which time, I managed to get some snaps shot. Ater all, why did I do all this? For the sake of some neat snaps right? Anyways, these curls wouldn't last for long. And should I explain the kind of comments passed on, at home?

The next day, it was looking really terrible. I went back and shouted at them and finally after another 3 hours of my 'good' time spent hopelessly, she gave it up saying- "Your hair is too straight to be curled!!"
I thought: "Thank you ma'm, appreciate your service and quick realisation"

Like they say: "Some people learn only by experience". I feel that this pretty much holds true in my case. This experience, being only one such instance.

Personal diary...

Apart from this 'public' blog, I used to write a personal diary, not giving anybody any sort of access to its contents. I used to write basically my mind in my diary, all those things that I cant/dont like to share with anyone.
I started writing way back in 1995 or 1997(cant remember exactly when) for a couple of years. Then I stopped for a while and again resumed in 2003. (Actually I had stopped for 'quite a while'- 5 years is not a short break). Since then, I have been filling pages after pages of my 'mindwork' daily(just makes me appreciate my patience and my handwriting!!). I havent let anyone read(although my brother has tried to read a few lines). I havent found the time to read it either.
I have tried reading my previous year's diaries, but when I read, it only makes me feel that I have written in such a kiddish manner! So, I tried bringing some maturity into it.

People have told that its a good habit to write and I know it too. But its just that I have suddenly started feeling that I need to stop writing.
Reason: 'I' dont read, neither would I want anyone read, then why write? (The fact that it took so many years for me to realize this, comes to me as a surprise!)
It has been atleast a month since I wrote anything.
What say?

Ignorance

I was just thinking how strong the effect of ignorance is on people. It makes them think so incorrectly, do wrong things, perform actions for which they themselves will repent later etc.,.
I cant believe that it is so strong;for, how else could all this be happening!

I have observed that no matter how strong your so-called destiny(if you believe in one) is, it is 'your will' and only 'your will' that can drive this ignorance away.

Of course, your decision to will to take up this marathon task could be influenced by others/discussions. But, it is only 'your' will to gain knowledge that can help you.
Thats what 'I' have learnt.

Truth

The truth is out there and in here and everywhere..

Can you tell me how to interpret this?

Figure1
I was riding back home after having attended a basic Pranic healing course. It was around 6.45pm and I was observing the sky that was painted with light blue that gradually got mixed with a strange patch of fading crimson red. It was looking like a strange shape. I got so involved in watching it that I almost forgot that I was riding..

I reached home in a few minutes and decided to take a snap of this strange shape. As there is no open space on top of my house, I went to a friend's house immediately, to reach the second floor of their house and I adjusted my camera to take a snap of this image before it faded away. The first snap that I took was very strange in that, the camera caught an image of something that was actually not there. It was a huge white circle that has a strange shape within itself. I took another snap in anticipation of that same shape reappearing, but this time it didnt! I took a few more snaps and the camera could catch only what was actually visible, which looks like the one in the above snap.
Now, look at the snap below. This was what I was referring to as the first snap.. that looked strange.

What is this huge perfect circle? There was no such physical or visible object there. Can you also observe some strange object within that circle? I was so astonished..not that my camera could catch something that 'I' was unable to see. It was an experience like never before! I couldnt believe my eyes..Well, actually the camera!

Some people said that it is the sun.. but there was no sun there, as you can see from Figure 1. My brother said that it is a raindrop. I dont think it can be that huge and on top of it, there was no rain! It cant be dust on the camera lens either, or could it be? Because, in that case, there would be so many dust particles and not all of them would manifest as one huge white perfect-circle with some kind of an aura around it!!

And yes, there is no photography trick involved here!!

Any ideas? Any guesses? How do I interpret this?? Will I find an answer? Just getting very curious to know..

Confusion and frustration...the good part of it!

Seems like it is good to get confused every now and then. This will make you 'think'. So you consider a lot of things, suddenly you seem to have a lot of options to choose from. It could be any event. As you keep thinking, you will find that you have a lot of ways that you could lead your life through.This, no doubt leads to lot of frustration and confusion. But it is a nice experience. You cant always expect decisions to be imposed upon you..I mean you need to think, take decisions by yourself.

What is good about getting confused?
Time moves on (if you believe in the 'time' concept-I don't!) and things become clear. As you move on, you will start finding solutions and will be able to make your own decisions.I personally feel that you will gain more strength and clarity as you move on in a so-called 'confused life'.

Think of it this way..there is some kind of a training or a learning phase that your 'mind' needs to undergo so that it becomes stronger. So, the sense of frustration is unnecessary. I quote: "If necessity is the mother of invention, frustration is the mother of creation". So, when you are frustrated, you tend to think a lot and focus on a particular field which you would have otherwise not bothered too much about. Your energies get channelized. Where frustration tends to develop new qualities in you and help you discover the unknown 'you' within yourself, it is good. But if you get into mental depression and lose inner balance..it is obviously bad!

You cant have the cake and eat it too..

Instance 1: A drive without music..

Just imagine this.. you are in your car, driving at around 10pm on a holiday, after a wonderful candle light dinner (now dont ask-with whom?) through one of the most happening places at 80kmph and you are alone in the car!! There is hardly any traffic, all shops along the street are open and are very well illuminated! You are feeling great about the drive..Just rolling the windows down and the very cool breeze manages to get through your hair.. You are enjoying every damn bit of it..and all alone!

But you are missing something..'The music'! It seems very good till this thought about listening to music gets into your mind..But you can't resist thinking about it especially when you are driving in the night. And this is the moment when you feel so frustrated.. Can someone get some damn kind of music into this car NOW?

Be it any thing..rock, jazz, carnatic, hindi, instrumental...some of these which you actually hate to listen! A lovely drive just got so frustrating without music. I need to buy the stereo soon, but atleast till then, I ensured that I carried my FM radio that plugs into my cell phone when I went out next time for the drive. But this time, you know what happens..there is so much traffic and noise all around that I just didnt feel like listening to music (athough it was very good). I unplugged it! I guess this is what people call: "You can't have the cake and eat it too"! A very simple, but a highly practical example I guess!

Instance 2: When a golden opportunity knocks at your door!

Everyone has or atleast should have goals-call it short term or long term or whatever. As life moves on, rather when you move along with life (!!), priorities do change..thats the 'rule of life'. You dream of something and you have always ensured that you realise your dreams, because there is this one life and only one to do all that you possibly can. As you have got what you wanted, you think that this time also, your dream would get realised. But it doesn't.. for reasons that will become obvious after sometime. You dont crib about it any longer, because you know why....

Like I said, priorities change and you start aiming half-heartedly at your goals. A lot of other changes happen which force you to get less deterministic about a lot of things which you would have been more serious about, otherwise. You let time fly by.. and this opportunity which I call the 'cake' knocks at your door. It lets you rethink. All those thoughts which were lurking somewhere behind the door of your mind are now beginning to surface. Life once again gets frustrating, because I start thinking seriously again- that's very much like me! I start saying: 'Life is a bitch'.. I actually hate myself to the fullest when I define life this way. I am not my true self when I define life this way.

I have the cake right there.. do I want to eat it.. knowing that it will taste good? It is upto me. Now this is the toughest part of it: 'Decision making'. I am in a situation like never before and start doing things that I've never done before: 'Seeking people's advices'. I have always advised people, but have never sought one because I never had to and I have always hated to! What happened to all the confidence that I had in myself? It is only now, I understand that it is not easy to advise yourself! Or is it? It is easy to solve others problems, but why cant people solve mine? Is it because the problems are complicated or atleast I feel that they are! Or is it because my way of thinking and amy approach towards the problem is only a lot complicated!

Anyways, getting back to the cake that I have with me, I have just started to get all the assistance that I need, to decide on whether I should eat it or not. This is making me strengthen my belief in 'destiny'(dont visit this site unless you are hopelessly jobless and if you hate comics- I hate it myself!) that I have always so much believed in, because it is so true, always..and with everyone. It would have been great if I could get a 'sneak preview' of what happens after I eat the cake..if I could virtually travel to the future and get back!
It looks good, I hope that it will taste good too , but for how long and what are the repercussions? There are lots of factors that I need to think about before deciding on anything. Will the taste of it remain for long? Care a damn about the taste.. it is only momentous, but is it gonna be useful? Is it worth it? Will I be able to optimise all the parameters? Time will tell. Again, it is upto me! And it is the toughest of the decisions to make, when it comes to: 'Yes' or 'No'. I wish there was something like: 'Neither' or 'Can't say' or I wish: 'BOTH for equal amounts of time and then I will decide' or some such option. But there are only two logic levels in life: a '1' or a '0'.
I have always believed in this and it has always worked for me: "You can never connect the dots(events that happen in life) looking forwards, you will only be able to connect them looking backwards". So..just believe in this! You might not believe in this for the first time, but when you are able to connect a few of them, trust me..you will start believing in this and it actually makes you feel better. It is good for your health! I mean, for 'the mind'! OK..there is so much to talk about the mind. Not now, I guess this posting has already become a bit too huge. So, some other time...."The mind"!

Solitude: thats a different kind of fun!!

I guess most people would differ in their opinion from that of mine about being or travelling alone. I wonder what people feel when they are totally alone in a new place. It is an experience of a lifetime..which you wish that you forget soon, but you wont be able to! For a moment you feel that you are totally free to do anything that you could possibly do in the world, which you could have probably not done otherwise..You totally forget about all those people who care so much for you.. and most importantly theres no one to give you uninvited advices (wait...you will realise the importance of these advices later)!

While walking along a beach alone..Wow! Thats when you feel that you are realllllly alone! There's not even a person along with you who could take your snap ;-) No fool would want to want to go to a beach alone..but I did(especially after being warned that it is not a safe place)!!!
When you go to have late dinner in a restaurant along a beautiful pool side- the most frustrating moment is when the guy doesnt even give you the menu card because he thinks that you are waiting for someone to join:( This is when you would hate to be alone-while having food in such a beautiful place.
But then shopping alone is a unique experience which you would never forget. You certainly wish that you had someone with you-but thats ok!
Now think of this: You are inside a black Mercedes Benz- It is so 'royal' ish and you are all alone!!!(there is the driver of course!) How would you feel? This is certainly a great feeling-being inside a Mercedez-lovely soft cream coloured seats, you are having an amazing drive and on top of all this, just guess what the people looking at you from outside must be thinking... something great about you. You are so excited-but there is no one along with you. This is a terrible feeling!

These are the thoughts that would probably come to your mind: You would probably wonder what this life is all about..why are you here-alone..and how wonderful it will be if you could find someone who you know of, in this totally lonely place..
All in all, its a great experience that you would never forget. You were all excited initially when you discovered the independence that you have in being alone-then you go through a phase in which you feel lonely- finally when it is coming to an end, you relish it and you feel:
"Solitude-thats a different kind of fun!!!!"

Relish every moment...

When life is great and everything is working well for you, you dont quite seem to realise that you are living one of the greatest moments of your life, until you lose them. You keep complaining about petty things which actually do not matter much in life. And when suddenly all the happiness disappears, you feel invaded by a profound, heartbreaking sadness that envelopes your whole being, that cannot be overcome by all your courage. You were such a courageous human being who felt that you can do all that you possibly think you can, and suddenly you find yourself being dictated by events that happen in life. They just happened!

You will no longer want to complain about anything in life and would not view petty things under magnifying lens.Life gets tough when it starts dictating terms to you, but there is nothing that you can do to make it work otherwise. You can call it fate or destiny or whatever. It will have its final say. Things just happen and make you feel that they shouldn't have happened.As I said earlier, you do not seem to realise that you are living a happy life because you basically do not know the bad face of life as yet. You want more happiness and more and more. But theres an upper limit for happiness.

I sometimes wonder why life can't be fair to all. There is an upper limit for happiness, but I wonder why there is no lower limit for sadness. I am sure, people love this quote-"Life has its ups and downs". I absolutely agree with this..but the problem is that you do not relish your great moments because you do not know that they are great until you lose them. Yes..this is true. And when you lose them, you realise that its all over in a flash. And you start feeling: "Were all the great moments that I lived, a dream? Yes..it was a dream. Thats wasn't true" As you feel that you have no control over all that life has got in store for you, my only suggestion and the only best possible thing that you can probably do is -"Relish every moment in life"-we dont quite seem to do this.

These could be very small moments in life, like, going out for a walk on a cool summer morning with an elderly lady (who keeps advising all the way and you hate all of them-yes all of them, you will only realise its importance later), cooking(you keep saying that you would never want to cook again, not knowing that you will not be able to avoid it- although you hate every second of it), late dinner with family(you keep complaining about tasteless food, not knowing that, only worse is going to follow in a few days), shopping or riding bike or a long drive on a friday mid-night or even a night out at office! There are many many more such small things in life which we really dont seem to care much about. You will start caring about them when you will no longer have them. And you realise that its just too late.

So relish every single moment that you live. I repeat-"You-will-not-get-them-back".
All that you will be left with is sweet memories! I also feel that- "Instead of feeling sad that its over, feel happy that it happened". I know..its not as easy as I say..

Holiday in Goa-joyous experience that just stays..

If you are in Karnataka and love long drives, if you wanted to discover the nearest and one of the best Goan beaches, in all possibilities, you would be directed to this beach in the southern part of Goa..Palolem.
This is how I would go about describing it..White clean sand, gentle breeze-as if saying 'stay calm and quiet like me' (me-meaning the breeze!), lovely scenery: you can watch the far-off mountains trying to hide from being sighted, swaying coconut palms, beautiful huts....and less crowd compared to that in other Northern Goa beaches. No one usually travels that far down south..except those who really want to visit the most beautiful beach or those who are driving from the south.
The most strange feature of the beach is that-mostly foreigners throng the beach..and very few Indians can be spotted here and there..
If you are crazy about photography...do note that you can possibly take all the lovely snaps here. The scenery is just a treat to watch..
Anyone visiting Goa, please make it a point to visit Palolem..you would be extremely delighted-take my word for it!