The Ego does not
exist! Yet it is present at all times.
The ego is unreal: it is just an idea. It is but an idea of
ourselves of who we are. An idea of several fragmented parts, that which over a
period clings to us and is seen to be us. The real you is an organism, but an
organism that exists in harmony with the environment. By itself this living
organism cannot exist. It exists as a part of the whole.
Just as the skin covers our physical bodies, our ego is the
skin of our mental processes. Just as the physical skin gives us a distinct
sense of what we are and what exists outside us, the ego describes a distinct
‘I’ versus that which is outside. The
ego is a linguistic fiction: it describes a thing: a noun. A noun is an object.
A thing is finally a ‘unit of thought’ – a concept. Your mind creates this to
help you make sense: to support rational choices. But what is rational: demand
feeding or scheduled feeding? Both is an idea. Ideas change over time.
So why do we have a penchant for things? We need to unitise
something to help us get clarity. We need this to analyze, for our mind to work
things out. How many things does it take to call us human? We use a unit to
describe the basic element that makes up the whole. The head, upper torso,
lower body are all segmentations created: in reality they don’t exist. Classification
is to enable us to think through: by themselves they are not a reality. At what
stage does the neck become the upper torso or a part of the head? The atom is a
unit for material, and so on and so forth. An attempt is being made to think in
simple terms.
In our attempt to measure, to figure out things, we try and
arrive at a unit to measure. To make sense of it. All forms are then sought to
be measured by its unit in order to understand it. We need for us to make the
intangible, tangible.
The human body is constantly changing, in perpetual
‘amness’. Yet, we are deluded with the object, get attached to it, cling to it.
Become overly possessive with that ‘thing’.
In the beginning was the word…said the bible. It begins with
the concept. When does something begin, when does something end? Yet we need to
create an arbitrary distinction, we choose to categorize, into distinct
segments in order to describe more precisely, and that allows us to explore it
more distinctly.
Yet it is critical, that at all times, that we recognize
that the actual environment cannot be split into parts: they are all
interconnected. Like mechanisms in the clock, each one can be described in
part, but together it all ‘hangs in’. There is no separateness that
exists. We are almost in a state of
hypnosis, seduced by language most of the time. To transcend, one needs to go
out of one’s mind. Literally. This would require an awakening to the true
structure of one’s consciousness.
Thinking is an art, an acquired skill. It requires
diligence. It needs to be developed. Truth is, our brain does most of the
thinking for us. If we do not understand our own brains, it seems our brains
are more sophisticated than we are. Our brains continue to take in all the
sensory inputs from outside and analyses it all the time. Truth is, one cannot
catch hold of the physical world, it does not exist. In it reductionist form,
it is but an atom, and even lower just an energy wave: it exists but not in the
way it appears. Yet, we have a desire to explain away things. What is, only
describes what you are. The observer is the observed, said J. Krishnamurthy. That
which is outside, is a maya: an assumed to be an illusion. A dream like state.
That’s not true.
The foundation of maya comes from the its original sanskrit
root: measure, metre, matter, metric. Equating the realities of the physical
world to ‘measure’ – to find an equation. Maya is art, skill in creating
something, different vision of the universe. All enabling us to see the world
in different ways and in infinite ways.
All laws of nature do not exist in nature, they at best
measure nature. Gravity is a metric or the law devised to measure. That an
apple does fall, the law of gravity is devised: it just happens to describe
what is regularly observed. The law follows the phenomena, the phenomena is not
caused by laws of gravity. If a stone moves up, it would have been called the
balloon effect. The fact that a stone does not balloon up but falls to the
ground, we have the law of gravity. The effects are explained by a cause, or it
it? Or that the pattern is explained by a law, which is causal. 'What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our nature of questioning." W. Heisenberg
In fact to believe in a rigid law, is dangerous. Legal law
is not the ‘letter of the law’ but have know the ‘spirit of the law’: the sense
of justice, the equity principle is key. A judge needs to apply these
principles, not just enforce the letter. This is not being tough mindedness: it
is just inflexibility.
We live our lives in stories, idioms, notions and symbols.
These do not exist just in one time or epoch but across time. It is our
collective consciousness as referred to by Carl Jung. Our notions come from the
ideas of our times. Psychoanalysis derives its notions from Newtonian Physics. Meditation
more from Quantum Physics. Earlier, biology of the human being derived most of
its insights from Mechanics.
Fact is, that a notion is a function of its time. All
notions is but an idea. What would an advanced conversation be if there were
indeed no concepts: no words. A combination of a heart mind conversation.
The part contains the whole: the whole exists in each part.
We are complete. What God created whole, man divides.
Extracted material: Maya has 3 variant forms: Maiya, Miah and Miya.
Maya: Hindu - Hinduism Dictionary on Maya
maya: (Sanskrit) "Consisting of; made of," as in manomaya, "made of mind."
From the verb root ma, "to measure, to limit, give form." The principle of appearance or manifestation of God's power or "mirific energy," "that which measures." The substance emanated from Siva through which the world of form is manifested. Hence all creation is also termed maya. It is the cosmic creative force, the principle of manifestation, ever in the process of creation, preservation and dissolution.
See: loka, mind (universal), mirific.
The Upanishads underscore maya's captivating nature, which blinds souls to the transcendent Truth. In Shankara's Vedantic interpretation, maya is taken as pure illusion or unreality. In Saivism it is one of the three bonds (pasha) that limit the soul and thereby facilitate its evolution. For Saivites and most other nondualists, it is understood not as illusion but as relative reality, in contrast to the unchanging Absolute Reality.
In the Saiva Siddhanta system, there are three main divisions of maya, the pure, the pure-impure and the impure realms. Pure or shuddha maya consists of the first five tattvas - Siva tattva, Shakti tattva, Sadasiva tattva, Ishvara tattva and Shuddhavidya tattva. The pure-impure realm consists of the next seven tattvas. The impure realm consists of the maya tattva and all of its evolutes - from the kala tattva to prithivi, the element earth. Thus, in relation to the physical universe, maya is the principle of ever-changing matter. In Vaishnavism, maya is one of the nine Shaktis of Vishnu.
See: loka, mind (universal), mirific, tattva, world.
