BEING AND BECOMING

Behind peace there is constant war going on, wrote Michel Foucault. Behind every selfish activity the actions are borrowed from others, said Alan Watts. The polarity of positive and negative irrigates each-other, claims Hegel. Behind every moral action, or rather the emergence of morality signifies the immoral character of deap-down substratum, suggested by Lao Tzu. Binary takes its birth the moment good and evil are theorised. The true wisdom brings forth ignorance with itself. There is no way to escape binary in language. Deconstruction does show its absurdities. But the perception of absurdities is an intelligent conduct. There is no intelligence in the world which is not equally foolish. That may be the reason why intelligent people are full of doubts and fools are too sure about everything, claimed Bertrand Russel.

ये लम्हा भी बीत रहा है ये कैसी ज़िद है तुम्हारी कि तुम हवा को गिरफ्त करने निकले हो जिस ज़मीन पे खड़े हो उसे खिसकना तो हमेशा से ही तय था एक हाथ तलाश लेते जो कदम दर कदम तुम्हारा साया बन सका होता इतनी बेचैनी तेरे पेशानी पे क्यों दिख रहा है? मालूम होता है तुम अपने आज और अतीत से खुश नहीं दिख रहे हो कल भी क्या बदल जायेगा जबकि तुम्हारा अंदाज ही पुराना है!

कतरा के निकल जाओ हमसे  ख़ुद से दूर मत चले जाना जवाबों के फिराक में कहीं  सवालों से दूर मत चले जाना विश्वास करो रिश्तों के बुनियाद में ये काम आते हैं कुछ विश्वासघात को ही जीवन का ऋत मत मान जाना सुन के देखो कभी आस-पास की कहानियों को अपने ही कहानी को कहीं जीवन मत मान जाना पीछे में लोग कुछ भी बोल जाएं उनके हृदय में बसी मलिनता को चंद प्यार के बोल से साफ कर जाना

Picture's Courtesy: Tijs Van Leur I am sure you are aware about the Ministry of Loneliness. Why ministry for loneliness? Answer is obviously in front of us. Human being tries to flee away from his or her inner reality; doesn't want to face a true mirror, instead likes to be a collector of artefacts, monuments, and self-pride. Haven't you heard that people are often motivated by self-pride. But pride for what against whom? Collection of pride is as good as assemblage of wastages. Pride is an end product of becoming refugee of self and from self; an estranged reality, which furthers the accumulation of ego.  Human being has devised every route to escape his or her own truth. To be particular, Human being loves to become crowd, surrenders his autonomy, freedom, and dignity for the sake of being a thing, an artefact made out of herd instinct. Freedom is impossible to conceive when one's voice is simply a replica of crowd. Freedom and human dignity are protected as cherished...

Portrait's Credit: Jaron Su Social media is not so social, it is anything but a social reality. Aristotle was right for his age that Man is a social animal and for him life is nothing without society and politics. But his statement seems to be bizarre in a world of social media. Social media is a good medium to connect a person living too far temporally and spatially. But that kind of connection is anything but social. I was once upon a time suffering from fever. Whole day was creeping like Einstein's relativity theory became true to my case, i.e., a painful day is as long as a year has passed. Meanwhile, my facebook account was flooded with my birthday wishes. Everybody was wishing for me a good day. But it wasn't joyful as people wished for me. Whole day I was engaged to reply thankful message. I was grateful towards people for their kind behavior towards me. But the pain was not relieved anymore. I was wishing at least one person to come forward for medicine and food. In...

कोई चले समुंदर दान दिए पूरे पथ पर उफान लिये जब सच्चाई बेचा जाता है वो सच ही कहाँ रह पाता है ये सच का भला कैसा पक्ष है सही-गलत का द्वन्द क्या सच है जहाँ विरोध मौन हो जाता है जीवन सहिष्णु बन जाता है देखो पक्ष-विपक्ष की सभाएँ वो जहाँ वाणी में कटुताएँ हो वो क्या सत्य को जिएगा जिसमें पुर्वाग्रह से बनी असंवेदनाएँ हो वो मनुष्य ही कहाँ बिना अनुभूति के वो समाज भला कहाँ बिना सहानुभूति के जो स्थितिप्रज्ञता को पा जाता है जीवन संगीत हो जाता है

देखने की ज़िद है तुम्हें आँखें मिली है देखने को पर ये भी कोई बात हुई अपनी ही परछाई देखते रहते हो कुछ नया कुछ अलग देख पाया क्या तुमने मालूम होता है तुम्हारी आँखें शदियों से वही कहानी दुहरा रही है रहने भी दो  देखने की ज़िद ना करो देखना ही है तो ख़ुद से दूर हो जाओ इतनी दूर कि ख़ुद की परछाई ही ना पड़े वो दिन रौशनी दिखाई पड़ेगी अभी तो हर तरफ तुम्हारा ही साया है और तुम ख़ुद को ही बोझ की तरह ढ़ोये जा रहे हो

खेल खेल में जीवन देखो पतझड़ देखो सावन देखो भ्रम में उलझे रावण देखो पथ भी देखो मंज़िल भी देखो उलझे मन की अड़चन देखो पद भी देखो प्रतिष्ठा देखो सुबहो शाम की प्रतिस्पर्धा देखो क्रिया देखो प्रतिक्रिया देखो उन्माद से जन्मी हथकड़ियां देखो कभी उगते देखो कभी डूबते देखो उड़ते सुख-दुख के बादल देखो कभी आते देखो कभी जाते देखो मायाजाल में भरमाते देखो रुठते देखो मचलते देखो खेल खेल में जीवन देखो

चमक दमक में उलझी दुनिया ख़ुद से हर कदम भागती दुनिया कौन देखा है अंदर का सच  जहाँ चकाचौंध में जागती दुनिया इज्ज़त शोहरत की भूखी दुनिया तमाशों में उलझी दुनिया कौन सुनता है खामोशी को जबकि शोरगुल में बहरी दुनिया चंद कागज़ में बिकती दुनिया प्रेम से नज़र चुराती दुनिया अंतःकरण को कुंद कर न्याय के गीत गुनगुनाती दुनिया ऊंची आवाज में गाती दुनिया आवाज का दाम लगाती दुनिया प्रकृति को पैरों तले रौंद कर महल-अट्टारी बनाती दुनिया

Let it go. Anything you have accumulated; memories, resources, things, relations, positions. There is no permanence of anything; there is no substratum to hold on. Be wise and let it go. If you don't death will annihilate everything. But that moment won't be joyful for you. Your desires, wants, cravings are suffering. There is no desire ever fulfilled. Its unquenchable nature makes one more thirsty. Find a single being in the world who has satisfied all his desires. It's impossible. Don't hold on. Let it go. Life is meant to be lived in its fullest ecstasy. Those who surrender ego become life expressing itself in various modes and forms. In fact, surrendering is not a positive act to be performed. It is a mental attitude which is vital for feeling the beauty of life as well as its sublime ecstasy and its mystical possibilities. Death is not a permanent event yet to happen. It's happening here and now. Death is as temporal as life, as vital as any living phenomenon. ...

Awake o human spirit  You're dying for a piece of paper  While forgetting the source;  Tree and its timeless patience to stand and deliver fruits of its labour Awake o human spirit You have had such a long night Full of horrors and deceptions; Lies, conceits, and meanness  You better start afresh  And see the healing touch of nature inside and outside You better forget your programming of progress It has downgraded you as inhuman and subhuman  Awake o human spirit  Why are you selling everything? There is no buyer worthy of you Don't demean the spirit even god was once upon a time proud of you You better don't pretend to be clever Intelligence without heart is an artefact without soul Awake o human spirit Feel the music of life In starry sky and in your own consciousness Universe is not a material stuff only It is also vibrating inside you There is no wisdom in accumulating Which is bound to be lost in a way too long to carry any heavy baggage Awake! I...

Ladies and gentlemen, Greetings! I am writing a few words about much celebrated concept often used by so called progressives in defence of "pluralism". Another popular term from a culture which claims to be a defender of European rationalistic culture and its liberal values. The celebrated word is "tolerance". In popular parlance, literally, it signifies an attitude to accept the difference, "the act of allowing something", or "sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own" (Merriam Webster). Noble vision indeed! But the real question doesn't belong to here. What makes it so imminent to envision a culture of own and a culture of difference? Behind the imagination of difference there is an attitude to envision self and other. The attitude of "otherisation" itself is a subtle form of narcissism. The central point is ego facing the world at large, conquering nature, self, or others. Eg...

दुःख-सुख की उत्पत्ति के पीछे कोई अनबूझ रहस्य नहीं है फ़र्क इतना है कि हम जानना नहीं चाहते जो आंखों के सामने है उसे अनबूझ पहेली मान कर बैठे हैं अँधेरा है नहीं, हमने ही आँखें मूँद लिया है। डर के साये में जन्में हर एक अस्तित्व में प्रेम नहीं हो सकता जिसे बाहर से थोपा गया हो  वो अवांछित अस्तित्व है उसके जीवन में जीने जैसा कुछ भी नहीं एक डर का साया है और उसे पकड़ कर बाँध रखने में ही जीवन की सारी ऊर्जा खर्च हो जाती है। संगीत का जन्म आंनद में है जिसका ना कोई ओर है ना छोर ना कोई शुरुआत है ना कोई अन्त ना कोई रास्ते हैं ना कोई मंज़िल ना कोई वासना है ना कोई दौड़ वो प्रेममयी आनंदमयी अस्तित्व की चाह में मीरा गीत गाती है कबीर, रैदास दोहे लिखते हैं और वो अस्तित्व कहीं और नहीं चेतना में मिलता है जिसे भुला कर मृग कस्तूरी की चाह में वन-वन भटकता है। प्रेम करने निकले हो  तो समझ लेना प्रेम को समझे नहीं जहाँ मन है वहाँ प्रेम नहीं जहाँ प्रेम है वहाँ सारा अस्तित्व है!

There is not a single society in the landscape of time and space which has not witnessed anarchy and law simultaneously. The urgency of law is hidden in the anarchy itself otherwise who cares about law and its regulations. Undoubtedly, emergence of society and its organization require rules for the maintenance of order. And in case of deviance, law is used as a therapeutic tool to maintain the discipline in the functioning of institutions for the social goods. Society is no abstract entity rather it is composed of flesh and blood of human beings, who make sacrifices for its sustenance and also enjoy freedoms in abundance. There is no question to question the very necessity of law in the imagination of society. Many civilizations since antiquity imagined about law either developed in mythical literatures, theological rationalization, or in terms of secular codes. Solon was considered as the first law giver in Athens like Manu, Brihaspati, Narda, Vishnu, etc. in India. He opened the inst...

 ख़्वाब देखने का जज़्बा ही मर गया फ़िर भला ये दौड़ किस काम की भागते दौड़ते कुछ सामान इकट्ठा कर लिया और उसे संभालने में ये वक़्त निकल गया जिसे लोग ज़िन्दगी कहते हैं। ठहर कर देख लेते दो बात कर लेते तन्हाई में गुम कोई इन्सान बेरुखी नहीं दिखाता बेबसी के अंधकार में मौन हो जाता है चंद बातें इतनी महंगी भी नहीं जो इंसान की आवाज़ लौटा सके अपनी तकलीफ़ें सरे-आम करने से पहले सोच लेना  संसार के बाज़ार में मख़ौल उड़ाने वाले ज़्यादा लोग मिलेंगे बजाय मरहम लगाने के बाट सको तो खुशियाँ बाटना ग़म बड़े सस्ते में ख़रीद लिए जाते हैं राग, ईर्ष्या, वेदना, और चेतना इंसानी है और इंसानी ही रहेंगे इनको सही और गलत में बाटने का बीड़ा ना उठाओ जो खेल तेरे मन के भीतर चल रहा है वो चलता रहेगा ज़िन्दगी आख़िरकार किसे कहते हैं? खेल हर कोई खेल रहा है बच्चे से पूछो तो वो भी अपने खेल में गंभीर है बड़ों से पूछो तो उनके गंभीरता का क्या कहना सवाल इतना है कि खेल शुरू किसने किया? और खेल के नियम गढ़ता कौन है? खेलने वाला सवाल नहीं पूछता खेल को खर्च किये जा रहा है।

Naturalism and Humanism are the antidotes to fanaticism. Violence, cruelty, and exclusion, based upon caste, gender, religious or any exclusive identity are the byproduct of spiritual impoverishment. There is no better religion if it doesn't bring forth the idea and practice of love, harmony, and compassion. Religious fundamentalism in Greek caused the life of Socrates, a man of immense courage and wisdom, and in Europe, fanatics victimized great minds like Bruno, Galileo for their heretical proclamation, and Allan Turing in recent period because of his sexual orientation. Similar cultural pattern is visible in South-Asia since colonial periods. One incident of violence creates smokes for fundamentalist to use it as a tool of propaganda to incite hatred and bigotry against a community at large. Few miscreants take the cultural differences as a standard to create an environment of hate-mongering and inculcate beliefs and  prejudices, antithesis to humanism. Cultural differences are ...

Who can pursue happiness? Happiness is not a dream. It's not an achievement, a thing of future. It's an attitude, a state of being, a habit of being instead of becoming. Human species is the only one creature who reduces all the beautiful feelings into a possibility of becoming, even if it is absent at the moment. Possibility is a key word of teleological imagination; a movement, a plaything of time. Who knows what time is if not a state of movement? If something is moving what is the nature and character of that thing since it's nothing more than temporal. Temporariety is the real character of existence; does it mean nothing exists except time and its movement? In that sense, there is no perfect time; every moment is imperfect perfection or perfect imperfection. There will never be transcendence from hell towards heaven. Both are cousin-brothers. You dare break the binary, there is no perfect space or time to occupy. If anything is real, it exists here and now. If happines...

Writing is a dishonest act if it is practiced for the sake of writing only. We often write about many things without having any experience of the same, simply because somebody has expressed something. Through references writings are authenticated and authentic writers take its birth. Why do we believe somebody even if we don't have actual experience of the same? It's an easy task to create a piece as an assemblage of many authorities but it may not be true as per experience or it may sound quite illogical. Many illogical utterances often get validity simply because a name or institution of repute has said something. Validity is not desirable for a writer. Truth is more important than validity. To say truth is a daring act, the sole motto of European Enlightenment. But many of the writers of classical age wrote many a good things while ignoring the dark side of truth. Thinkers of enlightenment like Immanuel Kant advocated to use public reasoning courageously against dogmas. Cour...

If you want to have faith in innocence like a child, choose a friend like yourself. You won't get contaminated like a modern sophisticated man, who alienates oneself for symbolic life, arrested in language of money and power. The deep secret of modern life makes its secrets open for everyone to see its annihilatory character. A man runs after money, power, and position at the cost of loosing a life meant to feel and express. Man lives in a perpetual denial of oneself, suspends oneself for transitionary pleasures and in its suspension lives and dies a meaningless death. In search of meaning, he chooses to have more power, wealths, and fame and this narcissistic attitude becomes a burden to carry so long. Caste, class, gender, nationalistic ambitions are the by-product of self-annihilation of life itself. The construction of ego in the process of otherisation imprisons soul and compels it to live a life of slave. Ancient slaves were not allowed to be free. The discipline was imposed ...

Roots of Democracy, a piece written by Abhishek Banerjee and Sumedha Verma Ojha for the Indian Express, suggests about the ancient roots of republic and democracy in India. It is a fact visible across all the diverse literatures of the past. But the real question is not about its identities or the place of origin, instead, the problem lies in generalisation. It's an easy task to generalise an assumption to create a narrative about backwardness or progress, tradition or modernity, and status or contract, etc. Behind every generalisation, there is a case of cognitive or epistemological biasness. Before generalisation one must think about its opposite and try to investigate if opposite is equally true? In our world of values, there is not a single value exists as truth without  co-relation to its opposites. Likewise, democracy is not an institution or state of being rather an attitude. And every attitude has its opposites simultaneously. One can be democratic at the cost of non-democr...

हाँ, चालाकी का हुनर मैंने भी सीख लिया,  ये बात और है कि कोई हुनर ज्यादा देर तक टिकती नहीं है, जमाने के साथ पुरानी हो जाती है। एक भ्रम तब भी था कि मैं सच्चा था, एक भ्रम आज भी है कि मैं झूठा हूँ, सच और झूठ इतने सस्ते मकां में नहीं रहते, कि जिसे चंद शब्दों में ही पिरोया जा सके, कई बार ज़िन्दगीयां बीत जाती है यह समझने में, कि आख़िर में वह सवाल क्या था? इल्ज़ाम मढ़ने से पहले यह सोच लेना, कि कहीं तुमने अपने चरित्र को, किसी आईने पे तो थोपा नहीं है, शक्ल तो वही दिखती है, जिस अंदाज़ में देखा जाता है। कभी इर्ष्या भी अगर तुम्हें हो, सामने वाले की उड़ान पे, उसके पंख कतरने की बजाय, कल्पना की उड़ान भर लेना, कोई कल्पना कोरी नहीं होती, गर हौसला हो उड़ान भरने की। बात करने को बेचैन हो तो, तो एक बात समझ लेना, ज़्यादा बोलने वाला बेअक्ल जो जाता है, भावनाओं की गहराई को समझने वालों के लिए, आंख के आँसू ही काफ़ी हैं, सच की गहराई में उतरने के लिए।

Who is not interested in power? After all, "Will to Power" is the primal virtue every creature has been endowed with by nature. Even though, it has temporal existence, still it is sufficient enough to enthrall an ordinary mind. Power has a language unique in itself. Its language is cruel and uncompassionate. Meet a person of power who holds any position in life and travels to the highest echelon of power, you won't be surprised to know that people acquire a unique language of claim-counter claim. They will keep blaming others for their failures and keep boasting for the things they don't deserve to get. But the arrogance of power makes a good person worst than a machine. An efficient machine  is designed for production. It is valueless in normative sense. But a similar opinion about a human being doesn't hold true. In spite of the fact that history has shown us the futility of power. Alexander had a day but never remained for him. It is said that every victory is ...

ना कोई है, ना कोई नहीं है होने और ना होने का भ्रम तो है कोई है या नहीं है, पर भ्रम तो है गर भ्रम है तो कुछ सच भी है इस प्रकार भ्रम भी है, और सच भी है इस समझ में कुछ खोट है कि भ्रम और सच एक साथ नहीं रह सकता

जज़्बात में अक़्सर उलझ कर रह जाते हैं लोग, एक बादल के टुकड़े में आशियाना तलाशते रह जाते हैं लोग। उलझन को सुलझाने में पूरा वक़्त निकल जाता है, ख्वाहिशों की गुलिस्ता सजाने में जीवन व्यर्थ हो जाता है। पत्ते तोड़ शज़र को सजाने में लग जाते हैं लोग। एक बादल के टुकड़े में आशियाना तलाशते रह जाते हैं लोग।। ख़ुद को ढ़क कर कीचड़ उछाला जाता है, अपने दाग से रिश्तों की तस्वीर उकेरा जाता है। जज़्बात में ख़ुद को घायल कर जाते हैं लोग। एक बादल के टुकड़े में आशियाना तलाशते रह जाते हैं लोग।। बाज़ार में हर ओर इल्ज़ाम परोसा जाता है, ख़रीद-फरोख्त को सौदागर भी मिल जाता है। सच्चाई से कुछ इस क़दर बच के निकल जाते हैं लोग। एक बादल के टुकड़े में आशियाना तलाशते रह जाते हैं लोग।।

Desire is usually understood as a psychic phenomenon, produced by individual. In modern period, desire is produced like any other goods, which have innumerable buyers and sellers. It's like American dreams, which are bought and sold in spite of the fact that they have larger social and psychic implications. "Desire production" (Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1972) is a deleuzean construct, who visualised the "production mentality" from the perspective of desire, which is not a psychic-lack in Freudian sense rather it is a socially produced material, having commercial value in the terrain of market. Like Buddha visualised mind as a social construct, which has no substratum of its own, likewise desire as an individual's fantasy is unreal without territorializing it in context of society and social production. The terrain of market alongwith financial institutions flourish as an imaginary world produced by society...

आज बहुत घड़ी बाद लिखने की तमन्ना मुझे खिंच लाया उस पथ पे जहाँ जानने वालों की भीड़ तो है पर समझने वाले शायद ही मिलते हैं ऐसे पथ पे जहाँ चारो और शोर शराबे में इंसान अपने खामोशी को ढूढ़ रहा है खामोशी की क़ीमत हर उस शख्स को पता है जो शोरगुल से सने वीराने में रहता है हर जगह भीड़ हो जाने की जल्दी है मानो हर एक शख्स को ख़ुद से दूर भाग जाने की बेचैनी हो अकेलपन की बेबसी में गाँव के बुजुर्ग राह देख रहे हैं कि जिसे बचपन के मासूमियत में बढ़ते देखा था  वो पेड़ कब बूढ़े सर का छाया बनेगा

A good friend is potentially a worst enemy. Artificial Intelligence may be a best tool to create ease in our life but it is also a double sword weapon. It may turn out to be lethal enough to change the information into "information warfare" as suggested by former security advisor M.K. Narayanan. Pegasus demonstrates the human's capabilities to intrude privacy at will. It challenges the traditional apparatus of security and asks new questions whose answers must not be given in haste. It requires long term meditation to find out the ramifications and its solutions so as to secure the lives of people. Pegasus allows to transform democratic set up into a "disciplinary society", which is inversely proportional to the choice based democratic moores. Information has stimulating influence over everyone and everything in our epoch. This is a megastructure built upon the edifice of human's Psyche to intrude into the lives of others and to know about the secrecy one wa...

Reading Napoleon Hill's book Think, Grow, and Rich one may realize the beauty of positive mental attitude for the success in worldly life. Success here means whatever you want or have desire is not far way from your reach. It's a positive attitude to see things correctly or at least practicing self hypnosis is key to change the course of life. The basic premise behind the relationship of mind and matter is similar to what Buddha once imagined or the physicist in modern age think about.  Thinking is key to any attitude. It has a significant role in shaping the reality in which we are in. Though, premise is the same but conclusion of a Buddhist monk and a success enthusiast is quite opposite. A Buddhist monk will preach to understand the limitation of thought or desire so that to achieve equanimity in thought and action. For him, being enmeshed in the drama of the world is a root cause of suffering. More you desire the craving for pleasure will increase. And pleasure is an unquen...

History cannot be changed though the discourses which compile the histories in words are changed  strategically to achieve certain objectives. Indian nationalism found its expression against the British colony under its legacy. The transformation of colony into democratic and republic nation happened subject to caveat that its historical legacy remained unimpeded and intact. We may find mismatch in the aspirations of Indian republic with the means adopted by us to achieve that. The aspirations of Indian republic were expressed in the preamble of Indian Constitution. And the means to achieve them is the law we inherited from the British. The burdensome inheritance of British Juridical culture has made the governance lethargic and inefficient, adjudication complex and too technical to be fathomed by mind of ordinary prudence, and development "one dimensional" to refer a book title of Herbert Marcuse; be it urbanization, ghettoization, and "marketization of social goods and...

Who was the first philosopher? Perhaps one who had the first question about life and death. Question is the necessary condition for astonishment we feel hidden behind the miraculous presence of consciousness in matter and substance. Is there any universe without mind and matter? Buddha deconstructed life as five aggregates, consisting of four subtle mental elements and one gross element in nature of matter. Mind is predominant factor, if we rely on Buddha or quantum physicians, in shaping the reality of life. In ordinary consciousness, the question of mind and matter is presupossed as obvious fact. But for a philosopher like Buddha or Ervin Schroedinger, the obviousness of fact is questioned so as to unravel the beauty of truth behind phenomenon. Philosophy is an art of astonishment, a science of truth, and a possibility of unsettlement. It makes the world strange or demystify the strangeness quite often.  Birth of sciences didn't hamper the growth of philosophy rather enriched thi...

History is a favorite subject of many students including me. What history signifies if I wonder? It is not more than memory or time whose reality is fathomed through imaginative zeal. Many social scientists love archeology to excavate the truth in its marginal existence without relating it to the grandiosity of teleological imagination. And most of the historians chose few key words and exclude many others to create a thread of narratives which become a part of curriculum for the younger minds so that they may feel connected to its past, whether glorious or a matter of shame. In the end, to say, that history is not found or discovered but created is not an untrue statement. History is discursive like many of our sciences are, as hegemonic as medical science in form of Allopathy, which doesn't allow the marginal voices of medicine, in fact, most of them are silenced through myticalization as if one form of science has all the rights to subjugate others through otherization.  Past ce...

 दुःख-सुख के बाहर कोई अपना घर बनाना ये रेत के बादल हैं इनके चेहरे पे लिखे तेरे नाम का कोई वजूद नहीं है वो अस्तित्व भी भला कैसा अस्तित्व है ठहरता ही नहीं, बदल जाता है भारी मन से जो क़दम हर रोज उठाते हो वो क़दम मंज़िल की नहीं मजबूरी की है ठहर के जरा मन के आईने को साफ तो कर लो क्या पता मंज़िल की आहटें तेरे मन के अंधेरे कोठरी में कैद हो विचारों के प्रवाह को कभी पुर्ण विराम भी दिया करो ख़ामोशी में अक़्सर सच्चाई बोल पड़ती है

I crave, live, and suffer/ From sickness, old age and death/ I in me remain alive/ Like a burning desire to stay permanent with form/ And identify with it like a real thing/ I is a layer of ignorance/ Which keeps me away from formlessness/ The only reality of I in the world of appearance is the permanence of impermanence/ Behind the depth of all gross things only one life remains eternally possible/ What else will be its identity But zero or formless bliss? To identify is to suffer From the attachment within the world/ To gratify is to suffer from the non-fulfillment of insatiable desire/ To crave for fulfillment is a form of mental corruption/ Nothing needs to be fulfilled/ Every is already full, complete, and settled/ Only mind compels me to remain baffled for a mirage yet to come.

Once Buddha lost his way while traveling in a forest with Anand. He asked an old man working in a field, "how far the town is from here"?  The old man smiled and replied, "Don't worry! You have already reached the destination. It is only two miles away from here".  Buddha smiled back and continued his journey with Anand. Both were very tired. Instead of taking rest both continued their journey. After two miles of journey they couldn't find any town. Buddha asked to an old women about the distance of the town. She smiled and replied, "Town is not far away. It is two miles away from here". Buddha smiled back getting similar reply and continued his journey with Anand.  Anand was puzzled and asked about the smile of that old man and woman. Buddha answered, "We are in a similar profession, i.e., to inspire people to continue with their journey, even if journey is too long and tiresome. If you tell people from the very beginning that journey is too ...

Freedom is the first condition of the human's life as claimed by many metaphysicians, and of course, Immanuel Kant was the father figure of moral and political philosophy, who inspired many generations to ponder upon and internalize the postulate of "freedom of will". "Will" signifies the human's ability to create and superimpose the willingness over the natural conditions. It was considered to be a departure point from the thinking that humans are as natural as cow, dog or any other animal. Aristotle already expounded the social nature of the human's life, Kant added further and revolutionized the idea of freedom, autonomy, and human dignity. His conception of the categorical imperatives (morally binding duties), laid down the foundations of deontological philosophy in Europe. Deontological philosophy was though already a hallmark of Indian thought reflected in Bhagwat Geeta. Kant was a father figure of the European Enlightenment, who advocated to use r...

सोशल मीडिया हमारे जीवन का अहम हिस्सा है। सूचनाओं के प्रसार ने आज विश्व को एक गाँव की शक्ल में ढ़ाल दिया है। आज हम एक दूसरे के बारे में आसानी से जान सकते हैं। ज्ञान हमारे जीवन के लिए वरदान है। पर क्या सूचनाओं के संग्रह को ही ज्ञान कहा जा सकता है? ज्ञान का संबंध चेतना से भी जुड़ा हुआ है। जो हमारे आत्म-ज्ञान पे निर्भर करता है। पूरी दुनिया को जान लेना किसी के बस की बात नहीं है। जानने का प्रयास करना भी एक तरह की बेचैनी पैदा करता है। कोविड संकट की मिलने वाली पल पल की जानकारी ने दुखों का पहाड़ खड़ा कर दिया। ऐसा दुख जिसे दूर करने के लिए हमारा संघर्ष पिछले 14-15 महीने से चलता आ रहा है। पर ऐसे समय में मानव के सकारात्मक पहलू भी खुल कर सामने आये हैं। मानव ने अपने आत्म-बल एवं सहयोग से एक-दूसरे के जीवन में आये दुख को बांटने का काम किया है। गरीबों एवं वंचितों के लिए रोटी और कपड़े जुटाए हैं। बीमारी से ठीक हुए लोग ने प्लाज्मा देकर अनेकों जीवन बचाए हैं।  सकारात्मक पक्ष को अक्सर हम नजरअंदाज कर नकारत्मक पक्ष पे मनन एवं चिंतन करते हैं, और इस प्रकार नकारात्मकता को अपनी ओर आकर्षित करते हैं। हमारा जीवन हमारे व...

Watching trees and its dance in tune of wind It appears that time has stopped its ticking Drama of life and death has stopped for the moment Isn't it a joy to remain a silent spectator? When nature is revealing its truth; Its creation and destruction Do we need to muddy truth and its perception? Every moment is an eternal now Its strangeness is its beauty Its uncertainty is a noble truth Its openness for future is inevitable Time and space are mythical; when joy of existence touches my soul It heals my sorrow and attachment And makes me realise I am life Living and striving to live everywhere

One, who can not disobey, his obedience is slavery. One, who can not say "no", his "yes" is valueless. One, who has lost all the alternatives of life and has stuck around one mechanical duty, has no passion for life. He loses interest in the freshness and newness of existence. The moment work defines and restricts the identity of a person, his "potentiality to be" the supreme eternal life is reduced into insignificance.  Modernity has produced only two alternatives, if I refer Soren Kierkegaard, either we have too much alternatives so much so that we are confused in which direction we should move on, or we have no other alternative but to restrict ourself into little identity, which is carried on like a "prisoner syndrome", whereas prisoner identifies prison as an emancipatory institution at least better than a fast moving world and its insatiable cruelty.  Human being is automation unless there is freedom to reflect upon our own opinions, if it ...

रास्ते तो दो ही थे पर चलना किसी एक पे था विश्वास होते हुए भी गिरने का खतरा था संदेह होते हुए भी चलने का हुनर तो था चुनाव बड़े ही मुश्किल के थे रास्ते तो दो ही थे पर चलना किसी एक पे था ख़्याल तो आते थे थोड़ा ठहर जाऊँ मंज़िल का दूर-दूर तक कोई निशान ना था पर एक कदम विश्वास का काफ़ी था मंज़िल की ओर जाने के लिए कितनी बार ख़्याल आया एक ही वक़्त कई रास्ते गढ़ दूं कोई पगडंडी मिल ही जाएगी जिसके सहारे मंज़िल का सफ़र तय हो जाएगा पर शायद ये भूल गया था कि मंज़िल के लिए भटकाव भी उतना ही अहम है जितना की जाने वाले सही रास्ते रास्ते तो दो ही थे पर चलना किसी एक पे था

True Faith can redeem humanity from immense suffering. Most of the sufferings are attributable to the human's attitude towards or against the situations. Adversity and adaptability are two sides of the same coin. One may take every situation as an opportunity to learn and adapt or may feel dejected and depressed. Good and bad events are all about interpretation. Comprehensive understanding transcends the limit of value judgment, which is essentially a human's attribute. Science and religion claim their respective shares of contribution in understanding the real world. Science often asks "how" question and feels satisfied once a coherent method is achieved. Science has got the status of Biblical authority in deciding truth even though many of its projections turn out to be fiction in due course of time. Any one who questions the structure of science and its rationality is reduced to caricature for his criticism. Criticism is the foundation of science, yet people are no...

It's very easy to blame others, but it's most difficult to accept our own folly. Whatever we are facing today is our own making. No government or organization has come to Earth naturally. It is our wisdom or agreement which has established the institutions. Since institutions are failing, do we have courage to accept our own fault or we will continue blaming someone for our own miseries? Nobody helps unless one helps oneself. It's time to face the fact that our priority has never been health-care or education, except a few heroic acts of a few people. We live in a "culture of power", whereas becoming a doctor or teacher to serve the people is not a desirable goal. We love a culture of celebrity. And except few, celebrities are not interested in the suffering of poor people. We have Indian Idols, Cricket Idols, Political Idols, Bollywood Idols, but do we have a doctor idol, teacher idol, or  farmer idol? Do we value labour which makes our society possible? I know, ...

Yes, we are all concerned about survival. Survival for whom from what? Survival for the human's species from a virus, which seems to be too subtle but lethal to outsmart human's self-glorified intelligence. We often belive about ourself as the highest intelligence ever evolved on the planet with a unique capacity to imagine and transcend beyond the limited dimension of time and space. But when it comes to a crisis like this our response seems to be orthodox, presumptuous, uncontrollable, and outdated. We the human species are the self-proclaimed prophets of progress and rationality. We are, in fact, too selfish to see and experience the life beyond a human's skin. Earth, for us, is not a beautiful garden for aesthetic of existence, rather it is a place for opportunities to get enmeshed in bafflement of narcissistic dreams and aspirations. Life for us is not about feeling its fragrance in totality but a challenge to conquer extrapolated enemies. Death is feared by us even th...

What is life? This question has huge significance to understand the nature of death. Life is merely an abstraction or it is genuinely true? Life is certainly more than thought or consciousness. For example, a tree doesn't have thought to ponder upon its own existence, even though it is an example of life, or an animal like cat is not concerned with what is state of existence, except for a few basic needs, it moves on and plays the game what we the humans know as life. So to say that life is merely a consciousness is not a truthful statement. Life is a movement or it  resides in inertia as well? This question may be investigated only after looking at any inert matter. But the question may be asked is there anything which may be nominalised as inert-matter? Inside every inert-matter there is a chaotic order between various opposite forces. The centripetal and centrifugal forces are at work. Every dead thing is a dwelling place for life. Just like our house, which is occupied by vario...

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes. (Spinoza) : God would say: Stop praying. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you. Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you. Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe. Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of you...

Nothing is so fresh about language. It's noisy, symbolic, empty, ritualistic, discriminatory, but useful. It's meant for pragmatic use, misuse, and abuse. I wonder in what language a mountain communicates with the sky? And in what symbol a tree expresses love towards existence? They may have communication system, though unfathomable from the perspective of our ritualistic and habitual symbols. Enlightenment thinkers like Kant or Rousseau emphasized upon reason and logic as the basis to differentiate between anthropocentric worldview and the rest of the world of animals and plants. I find, language is the point of departure from the world of animals, whereas one appears to be a speaking animal, creating a life of symbols, by which things are claimed, justified, rationalized in symbols. For the purpose of discourses, language and its signification are pre-conditions for a symbolic world. On the other hand, rest of the world, as it seems to be, is living in the moment without bein...

Genuine questions deserve the name question otherwise every sentence organized with a question mark doesn't deserve to be labelled as questions. I often get puzzled to see many ideas are floating around without its relationship to any genuine question. Do we have any question to ponder up? Or we want to avoid questions? The first question begins with who is thinker? I am a thinker or a bundle of thoughts? I am thinking or my society and my history is thinking? Thinker thinks in language or thinker is capable to perceive the truth beyond any language? Isn't possible that we the human species live around the world of language, its structure and signification? Isn't it possible that our world is symbolic and idealistic? We as thinkers live in the language and express in the language. Language is the limitation of our world as Wittgenstein argued. Or to say so, our world is a binary reality, consisting of a world like any other animal, who has certain basic instincts, and also ...

Portrait of Lao Tzu who is believed to be a founder of Taoism. A teacher and his student were passing near a village, whereas a few people were quarreling for a piece of land. Teacher asked his disciple, "What is the source of conflict"? Student answered, "It must have origin in some misunderstanding". "Misunderstanding of what, asked the teacher? Student answered, "It has its genesis in ego. Especially, when a person feels he is too important a subject that the whole universe must serve his ends". And this sense of self-importance must have its origin, asked the teacher? Student replied, "Ego-centric life is a part of human's culture, which is nurtured and cultivated like a truth. As if, individuation is a quintessential necessity for life and freedom".  Teacher was interested to go further in that interesting dialogue. He asked further, "What happens in a quarrel like this? Should one avoid indulgence in a duet like this when a pe...

अक़्सर लोग कहा करते हैं सकारात्मक बातें करो। सब कुछ अच्छा हो जाएगा! पर सब कुछ अच्छा होना भी नकारात्मकता की निशानी है। दुनिया में क्या अच्छा है और क्या बुरा है इसका फैसला किस पैमाने पर होता है? अच्छाई-बुराई तो नज़र और नजरिये का खेल मालूम पड़ता है। नैतिकता का जन्म अनैतिकता के माने हुए पैमाने के साथ हुआ होगा वरना नैतिकता की पहचान कैसे की जा सकती है। जैसे मानव ने अपने दुःख को सार्थकता देने के लिए पंथो की स्थापना की। ईश्वर की परिकल्पना की। जन्म-पुनर्जन्म की बातें की गई। आख़िर में हम नकरात्मक पक्ष से डरते क्यों है? और अक़्सर इसे रात की संज्ञा देते हैं। वही रात जिसके आगोश में हम चैन की नींद सोते हैं। और भला पूरे दिन के लिये ऊर्जा का स्रोत क्या है? दुनिया की हर एक सच्चाई के दो पहलू मालूम पड़ते हैं। जब तक हम उजाले को ही सिर्फ़ सच मानते रहेंगे, सच्चाई से दूर ही रहेंगे। हर पक्ष का विरोधाभासी पक्ष है। जो पक्ष-विपक्ष से दूर होना चाहता है वो भी एक पक्ष के साथ है। और हमेशा एक ही पक्ष के साथ रहेगा इसे पुख्ता तौर पर कहा नहीं जा सकता। सच तो यही है कि बदलाव एक मात्र सच है। जिसे मुट्ठी में क़ैद करने की हिमाकत करन...