BEING AND BECOMING

Time, the most interesting subject for scientists and philosophers; An object of amusement for amateurs. Think about it but it remains unthinkable; Feel about it but it remains transcendental; Keep it at your palm and it will flow like water. O Time, you life, death, and everything; In every form and formlessness; In every joy and joylessness; In every narrative and essencelessness; In every meaning and meaninglessness. Time, an artefact of scientific imagination; The root of creation, nurturance, and destruction; The total sum of Universe and Universelessness; The circular movement; The purposeless play; A poet's dream and imagination. Time, the seed of life; The mother of fear and adoration.

Tell me a wrong which may not be justified. Justification and rationalization are the archetypical code upon which our civilization has been organized. From the reasoning of bureaucracy to the judgments of courts are based upon justification. Games are, of course, played within the rules. Those who play the game and those who observe the game remain committed to the rationality of game. Does it mean that there is no other virtue required to be observed except the rules and its justification? What is so creative about the rules? Does it follow the change perceptible in our world? Can it ever be adaptable with organic development taking place in our world of reality. We talk about training the skills to manipulate the rules and its interpretation. But in the end, the game is being played within the rule. All manipulated meaning is attributable within the rules. The question of truth, justice, or virtue keeps revolving around the rules. This is how modernity rationalized, positivized, and

I All forms of knowledge are system-driven. You dare to take a leaf out of tree and call it autonomous self. The fall and flight of it may be glorified as freedom, but in the end, one must admit its reality as a tree. And every tree is a system, a network of its multiple parts, whose identity and functions are determined by inter-play of its various parts. Knowledge is a system like a tree, whose possibility is actualised in cybernetic sense.              II The modern culture likes to propagate a culture of specialization and produces a few specialists, who barely understand life and its organic playfulness. A doctor, an engineer, a bureaucrat, a political leader, or a cosmologist perceives the truth in isolated sense, their education is limited, their sense of truth suffers from cave-mentality. A doctor who cannot feel the spiritual reality in patient is just like a shopkeeper who knows price of everything but value of nothing. A lawyer, who is amused in conflicts and thrives profess

Subordination is a compromise of human's dignity, which radiates in every soul of the Universe. In ignorance, people keep searching the fulfillment in ideology, faith, material success, and entertainment, etc., Paradoxically, one has everything when one stops searching. And one forgets everything when the ecology of bafflement pervades and dismantle every iota of peace and tranquility. Human's desires are infinite like a long succession of time. Every fulfillment of desire leads towards another quest of desire. In this series of oceanic webs of desires, one gets nothing and looses nothing but remains troubled to meet with the perfection. What is perfection if not an image? Image whose realization doesn't stop one for imagining further. And the quest to realize a perfect sense of image makes one fearsome and anxious. In fact, every idea of perfection is created in antagonism of imperfections. Every attempt to eliminate imperfections leads one towards self-defeat. One can'

मानो तो बस उलझन है ना मानो तो दर्पण है कोई देखे तो वह सावन है कोई रम जाए तो मनभावन है कोई पूजे तो वो ईश्वर है कोई घृणा करे तो वो रावण है कोई खेले तो मनोरंजन है उस पथिक के लिये यह जीवन है

Picture Courtesy: Vrindavan Das Introduction: What is Advait? In Quest of the Ultimate meaning of life, Indian philosophers and mystics explored the question of life, death, and reality of consciousness. In Hindu tradition, Upnishad explored the relationship between atman and brahman, which is popularly known as Advait. This school of thought believed in the tradition of Jnana Yoga to contemplate the reality. Jnana Yoga is not meant for every ordinary being reason being, it is a difficult task to transcend the naam-rupa illusion, which makes our reality too entrenched with worldly affairs. It is almost impossible to believe that God is not outside us rather he is expressing itself in various forms. We are not merely the forms of clay rather that clay itself, the essence which pervades in the cosmos who is experiencing the world.  Erwin Schrödinger, a well known scientist, who made the huge contributions in the development of quantum physics, was a meticulous student of Upnishad. He in

     Picture Courtesy: Reddit Carl Gustav Jung, one of the great psychologists, once wrote about the ethics of a doctor. He said that a doctor, as a healer, required to be non-judgmental to heal a patient. Because, judgment or condemnation has a repressive potential, which is antithesis to healing possibility. Healing requires compassionate attitude whereas a doctor becomes one with the patient and witnesses divine will in the patient. Only an "unprejudiced objectivity" unlike abstract intellectual contemplation, diagnose the patient without any value judgment and heals his malaise. In “judgmental attitude” there is a danger of projection or introjection of Ego’s shadow over the object who/which is judged. Our judgments reflect our own image over others, in the sense that a judge judges or condemns his own being before its shadow is projected over the object, which is known as others. Due to this attitude, a judge suffers in his own self when his own conflicts appears everywh

  यादें कई रंगों में सनी यादें वो मासूम बचपन की जब कुछ पन्ने किताबों के जब पहली बार निहारता रहा था वो काबुलीवाला चाचा कुछ कानों में कह गया था और बाबा भारती खड़ग सिंह का वार्तालाप  जो विश्वास की कसौटी को ऊँचा कर गया था और फिर तितलियों को मासूमियत की निगाह से देख जाना सुबह की पहली किरण का पेशानी पे तिलक लगा जाना सरसो के फूलों के चादर में लिपटी हुई  उन खेतों में छिप जाना वो शाम जब नुक़्क़ा-छिप्पी में खो जाना त्योहार भी क्या त्योहार हुआ करते थे आज भी वो सब कुछ आँखों के सामने है पर उसे महसूस करने वाला मासूमियत कहीं दूर जा चुका है इतनी दूर कि शायद उसकी आवाजें बचकानी सी लगती है

Gain more fame; Proliferate your name; Stimulate little joy; Forget what you're. The culture all the same; Facilitating professional gain; At the ruins of life; At the cost of furies and cries. Mornings are running in vain; All noons are lazy sights; Look, evening no more excites; Neither happy all these nights. Anomic this is train; Pathless all these aims; Circular path of strive; Work all too work; Consumes the spirit of life. Replicating all the same; Evenings are no more Zen; Without passion what is life? Productions of miseries and strives.

ख़ुद में ख़ुदा तो है,  ख़ुद से वो जुदा क्या है? बड़ी-बड़ी बातों में रखा क्या है? आख़िर उसमें हममें फासला क्या है? तेरी शख्शियत बड़ा क्या है? इन कागजों में गढ़ा क्या है? जब तू ख़ुद हो गया,  तो ख़ुदा क्या है? नश्वरता में शाश्वत क्या है? बदलते मौसम में जड़ता क्या है? तेरे मेरे होने में रखा क्या है? इन तमाशों का माजरा क्या है?

कुछ बातें यादों के झरोखे से  दस्तक दिए जाती है वक़्त-बेवक़्त कभी भी ये सवाल पूछ जाती है कि सुख-दुःख के भँवरजाल में वो कौन है जिसे हम जीवन कहते हैं? वो कौन है जो साक्षी मात्र है? इतनी गूढ़ता से रचा यह संसार क्या एक कल्पना मात्र है? एक कोरी कल्पना  जिसे गढ़ने वाला सिर्फ़ हम हैं इतनी शिद्द्त से सजा  सपनों का महल बस पलक झपकते ही अपनी सच्चाई से रूबरू हो जाता है

Healing is required from the wounds. It's natural to overthink as long as samsara exists. Attachment is as real as suffering. This is a fact. The wound of attachment causes suffering in me, you, and us. The desire of pleasure, the hope to continue with a particular feeling or passion is quite natural. The unbound desire to accumulate health, wealth, honour, or knowledge makes one strive to gain more and more. The appearance of life is what if not more than a "will to live" (Arthur Schopenhauer)? The constant struggle of existence is known as life in Darwinian sense. In an ecology of struggle, peaceful co-existence is desired. Buddhist scholars emphasize to adopt Samatha and Vipasyana "to stop" and "reflect upon" the restlessness. As long as, there is a life, the struggle, the strife, will continue. Ashtavakra proclaimed in his Gita that each one of us is the "pure consciousness", who doesn't require any meditation or any effort to be quit

A few days ago I lost my mother. I was deeply attached to her. I guess, no child in the world can feel alienated to her mother. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. Her compassionate attitude, caring gesture, gracious smile, suffering, and everything I can remember come to my mind again and again. Perhaps, this is the truth hardly accepted by anyone in a competitive world of success and failure. Every achievement appears to be too small in front of death as a truth. She used to say that "I am not afraid of death but the fact that I won't be able to see all my loved ones is problematic". There is hardly any spiritual leader who neglected the value of non-attachment. But when it comes to samsara, the karmic fate ensures our life-circle to move around attachment towards everything. There is a strong desire to continue with the existing. There is a fear of unknown, uncertain, or death. Death is treated as evil in most of the prominent cultures around

You exist for society or society exists for you? Asked Jiddu Krishnamurti. Answer must be that each one of us lives for the society, if it is generalized after taking into account the "mass-culture". Mindful life is missing from everywhere. People want to be efficient. There is a competitive ecology prevalent all around between human species and smart computers or between masses of individuals. What do we want to achieve? Nothing! Is there any worth achievement which will be endurable? Even if one's name remains alive for thousands of years. Will it be sufficient to make one happy? Happiness is not an outside object, whose acquisition is dependent upon money. Happiness is not a goal, which may be achieved once for all. It is a means, a way, and it remains a way. Destination is a myth, a perception. Even a dead leaf has not reached to its destination. You may be good at production, of goods, services, wealths, but production mentality is obnoxious to happiness, peace, and

Th e narratives of progress and regress are mythological in character. Every spirit, every mind proposes his vision with utmost certainty as if no other alternative is equally true. This sense of certainty brings dogmatic scholarship, devoid of any possibility to attain objectivity and truth. The so called progressives treat history and mythology with contempts at the cost of nurturing his unconscious continuity of past and present. DNA is a living example of continuous evolution of genes. Language is another example which makes the society a continuous substratum, like a living organisms. What else could be said than the fact that all our relative knowledge in Buddhist term takes its shape in structure of time and space. Time is a scale of history, not necessarily making everything better, but it encompasses all the experiences ever experienced. A fragment of second is super-rich like a nucleus of atom. So called progressives vehemently react against the reality and lives in a superfi

What! You kill your own blood; In vengeance of others.  You killer, a secret admirer of enemy; Enemy is budding and growing in you; in fact, in you only.  What! You get offended too easily; By all too trifling caricatures. For what you're offended? Nobody is possibly an offender of others;  If one doesn't offend oneself; And in oneself, the substratum of humanity by thoughts and deeds. Think once, think twice, think again and again; Don't you suffer in suffering of every single manifestation of life?

Religion has been reduced to superstitious imitation in the age of scientific revolution. The birth of materialistic science through thoughts and experiments of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Bacon, etc., has been instrumental in knowing systematically the outer world through reason, experiment, and critical inquiry. Undoubtedly, the evolution of scientific methods, from Aristotelean teleological method to know the cosmos to the development of quantum world, from mythology, literatures to the development of history and sociology, has proved to be a progression to know the world and control the phenomenon through scientific experiment. But what has remained stagnated in all these developments is nothing but human's psyche and their reliance on rituals, faiths, and believes. Nobody can claim with certainty that one doesn't rely upon belief at all. A Marxist, a Freudian, or a Darwinian like Richard Dawkins cannot ignore the role of belief in our life. Every step of human's life i

I am wondering what is the source of hate-mongering from which India is suffering from. A country of Buddha, Mahavir, Kautilya, Gandhi is burning for the sake of nothing. Violence is perpetuated everywhere.  Criticism is made without reflecting upon the words one is using. Ecology of shifting the burden and the debate of us v. them are too parochial in nature. Media is selling the hatred and contempt, which is always a profitable business for them. In fact, violence is the cheapest product, which is easily sold in the market. Love and compassion are not too attractive virtues to be adopted. Happiness is impossible unless one deeply goes into the root of all these debates. A conditioned mind, unless reflects upon its source of suffering, moves around the peripheral stimulations and identifies itself with some image. Image is a byproduct of imagination which can't be true. Our world is temporal, which is always changing. No image can capture its dynamics. No concept is vital enough t

इस जहां की बात ही कुछ और है शायद ही कुछ लोग यहाँ जी भर के जीते हैं लोगों का हुजूम यहाँ मर-मर के जीता है कुछ पाने में सब खोता है जो पाता है वो रोता है है कौन सा पल जिसमें  आदमी चैन से सोता है? इस जहां की बात ही कुछ और है शायद ही कुछ लोग यहाँ जी भर के जीते हैं लोगों का हुजूम यहाँ मर-मर के जीता है कोई शोहरत के बाग लगाता है कोई पैसे की सेज पे सोता है कोई पत्थर पर नाम उकेरता है जीवन के मर्म को जाने बिना हर-कोई भागे जाता है इस जहां की बात ही कुछ और है शायद ही कुछ लोग यहाँ जी भर के जीते हैं लोगों का हुजूम यहाँ मर-मर के जीता है

Soren Kierkegaard once remarked that modern culture offers only two alternatives: either we have too many choices which confuse us that which one should be chosen or we have fixed limited choices within which we have to compromise. Every person who is identified with his or  h er profession carries out this burden for whole life until pension programme is enabled for the last few years. In the beginning of life choices appear in abundance. In between, choices are constricted but still an adventurous person may break the shackles of profession and can take the risk to wander in different directions. But the last few years of life becomes a monument either to celebrate in the name of bank balance or honour earned or to go down silently in atonement. Jean Paul Sartre investigated the question of choices in his Magnum Opus, "Nausea", and reflected on the limited choices of a modern man, just like a receptionist at the airport fakes the smile whole life with meaningless and inauth

Every event, every experience, every moment passing in our life is a great teacher. I have witnessed those moments when character of a person is blown away in sentiments of crowd. I have witnessed some extraordinary characters who have passed the muster even if circumstances were too adverse to judge as per normal parameter. Gandhi, Mandela, or Martin Luther King, Jr. doesn't become in one day, but it is in that extraordinary situation the character of such persons comes out and shines like Sun. Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Sartre, they all demonstrated what is lost when individuality is lost amidst clamour and cacophony of crowd. The extraordinary speed of Social Media played a pivotal role in bringing social consciousness and therefore movement like Arab Spring happened in the last decade. But same media is shaping the clay like humans' mind into uniform pattern; which has proved as lethal weapon, killing the uniqueness of thought, feeling, emotions in persons, and

Nothing is authentic unless it is written down. No institution can thrive at the cost of ignoring the record keeping process. Human beings have become sea of data, a plaything for manipulation by media, a case study to discern the pattern and regularity. Education has taken shape of degree, marksheet, and certificates. Quantity is reigning its sovereignty over every possible virtue. Data speaks truth what can't be fathomed by subject. Data reveals what is hidden and hides what might be obvious. But who cares about human's touch when files of document are enough to draw a character. I once visited my alma mater for character certificate. My teacher asked me what is the purpose of my visit to law school. I replied, "Character lene aaya hoon". He responded humorously, "Character Chhod ke gaye the kya?" I had no answer then to respond his query. I learnt the lesson that certificatory sovereignty has alienated humans from their own roots. Max Weber's castigat

Patience who has to listen? If one is surrounded by voices; Echoing every moment with invariable intensity. Music who has to feel its harmony? If unconscious movement of body and spirit defines what life is. Love who can find? If having and possessing have sketched the boundary of ego and its pre-occupation with knowns. Happiness who will realize in his hearts? If immediate thrust of pleasure and comfort is too intense to come out of it. Peace who will have If spectacle is all too desired aspirations, engulfing the human's mind into chaotic cacophony. Truth who is caring for? If illusion is a profitable veil To cover the dark side of life.

Where is Right if isn't lost in compulsions? Where is Duty if it isn't compromised through allegations? Where is Freedom if it isn't disappeared in exceptions? Where is Justice if it isn't monopolized by powers of institutions? Where is Equality if it doesn't remain in formal declarations? Where is Governance if it isn't a subset of management? Where is Dignity if it isn't subsumed by alienation?

Education is not meant to educate. This line of thinking is either too ahead of its time or too regressive. One may examine with curiosity why discipline is too important a virtue followed by educational institutions? If the purpose of discipline is virtue to be cultivated, what virtue it will bring in the character of a being, except conformity to a normalized value? Normalization is too important a goal for education that every scope of creativity is lost in following the tradition of mainstream. Why is it desirable to achieve uniformity in thinking, culture, and social relationship? If purpose is to make one single opinion as voice of truth, then, there is danger to create an echo-chamber of ideas. If purpose is to bring one way of life as authentic, in that case, multicultural beauty of existence appears to be at peril. I don't subscribe any value of nomological culture that there will be a law to live, or a pattern to behave. Assymetrical existence or uncertain pattern is as r

Everybody lives for ideals and within ideals. What is factual about human's existence is that there is no substantial reality, progresses or regresses without ideals. Ideal, standard, norm, aspiration, and goal are sources of meaning-making, peculiar to human's lives. What it means to be death of values or norms? Aren't there many lives forms living in the mode of being, without aspiring to be? Desire of being itself creates a paradox of becoming. Becoming, either neologized as progression or regression, defines being as always already in transition. Something which is always in movement or governed by sovereignty of time can't be something. It can't be nothing as well. In that sense, every reality is real precisely in its transition. Can there be a value then which is attained? Or value is also governed by dynamics of transition? If value is already in transition just like any other fact, is there any truth in being? Except, only being is becoming? So my first prop

Jonathan Sumption in his lecture on Law's Expanding Empire questions the role of a judge to decide the questions of faith, ethics, aesthetics, taste, and politics, and asked them to restrict themselves as a prophet of law and legality. Does it mean that there is a decline of other's authorities? And the questions that may be decided by politics or social agreement are decided by a few judges. Why law is treated as transcendental-problem solver, as if, law is a solution to every problem? Take for an example, love and affection could not be generated by law, neither law could teach the people to be compassionate towards every other creature of the planet. Legalism, a concept developed by Judith N. Shklar, raised the question of gulf between law and poltics or law and morality and advocated to see law in a holistic way rather than a rationalized tool developed by positivists in the modern world. In spite of her objection, there is certain truth in conceiving the idea that there ar

Freedom is the essence of human being, devoid of it, human species is reduced to mere chattel, governed by causality or contingency of existence. Out of heteronomy or hypothetical imperative, every animal, plant, or even human being lives their life. Every being is subjected to law of nature; each living creature is affected by hunger, thirst, lust, desire, greed, fear, hope, anxiety, expectation, and mentality to acquire more goods. What makes a human not merely a subject of contingency instead of capacity to transcend the limitation of heternomy argued German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He argued that the human being has pure practical reasoning which may be used to derive the categorical imperatives (morally-binding duties). This capacity is unique in the human being in the sense that a person is though subjected to causality of life, natural or social; one is tempted to use hypothetical moral reasoning to be a useful social animal. But being consequentialist may be useful in many se

पुरस्कार से पुरस्कृत  तिरस्कार से लज्जित जो जीता वो हारा जो पाया वो खोया जो जमा किया वो धूमिल हुआ जिसे खरीदा वो फिरसे बिक गया जिसे संवारा वो फिरसे बिगड़ गया एक पक्ष कहाँ है? वो अस्तित्व कहाँ है? यहाँ तो सिर्फ बदलाव है।

         Picture's Source: Google Books "War is the politics by other means", wrote Clausewitz. Michel Foucault extended this hypothesis when he suggested "Politics is the war by other means". In these two conjectural statements one fact is common, i.e. politics and war are inseparable. Michel Foucault delivered eleven lectures in 1976 at the College de France, which were published titled "Society must be Defended", reflected upon the nature of war and its role in defining politics and public right. Unconventionally, since he is known for, Michel Foucault examined the motive of the masters of order, such as, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and their concept of Sovereignty, its limited or unlimited authorities, and connected this theme to the necessity arose in Europe to establish a philosophical/juridical concept of sovereignty instead of historical/political one. Historically, war has been an instrument to establish sovereignty; once the order is establi

Miseries, confusions, and depression; You will find out many of its merchants; But the one, who dooms in such anguish; But the one, who likes to have it more; Is none other than our own ever-changing fragile mind. What if we appreciate what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen; What if we remain like a child; A passionate yes-sayer; And ready to accept what is; Miseries, confusions, and depression; Are never a guest to reckon with. Our attitude towards the events; Is experience; Our feelings and emotions serve our passions; Which poverty is more harmful; If it's not a 'poverty of mind'? Affirm the passionate cries; Rise above the 'fear of unknown'; And listen our own heart; And mind will be its servant forever.

सपनों से हकीकत तक कल्पनाओं से गढ़ी गई हर एक गाँठ में उसका ही बसेरा रहता है जिसे हम मन कहा करते हैं इसके कल्पनाओं की रस्सी से हमने ना जाने कितने आशियाना बनाए-गिराए उन पुराने पत्थरों के बंजारेपन से आज भी कोई बच्चा आवाज देता है उसे भी जवान होने का शौक था कभी पर वो भूल जाता है शायद कि हर-एक सपने समय के आगोश में बूढ़े हो जाते हैं फिर भला वो पेड़  जिसे कभी हम अपने हाथों से सींचा करते थे और एक समय वो मेरा हमसाया हुआ करता था पर आज की मदमस्त आँधी ने उसे झकझोर के रख दिया है ये सच है कि सपने देखने की हिम्मत होनी चाहिए साकार होने में ज्यादा वक़्त नहीं लगता ये और बात है की जब वो पूरा होता है तब तक सपने देखने वाला ही बदल जाता है

Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, two scientists of different nationalities, worked separately but for the sake of truth amidst struggle for claiming the superiority among the nations in the first World War. Two nations, Britain and Germany, were treating each-other like sworn enemies, fighting war without having any cause whatsoever to further the interest of humanity, and in that mad struggle, most of the scientists of both the nations were collaborating in developing the weapons of mass destruction as well as genocide. In that very critical condition, duo worked out diligently and proved sir Isaac Newton's theory of Gravity wrong. Einstein's General theory of relativity was theoretically a masterpiece, though logically correct and imaginatively wonderful, but without proof, no one was ready to accept it, especially, when science was also being visualized as per the national boundaries. In such a testing time, Arthur Eddington, from Cambridge University, went to Africa to

When I think to write for somebody I no longer remain truthful to the subject I am thinking about. Attentive writing is the most inattentive activity whereas the presence of "me" doesn't affect the flow of sentences or the river of discourses. The structure of discourse takes a direction of its own when the presence of 'I' or 'me' is not felt. When Jacques Derrida was writing Of Grammatology, he felt a power leading the book he was unaware of. Instead of influencing the book, he was flowing like river along with the book, which shaped his consciousness and remained with him a paradigm for his whole journey of intellectual life. Written piece is free from writer, it is always already in interpretation and interpreted again and again with infinite progression or regression. But it is mistake to think that writer knows the objective truth of text. Writer is as much confused about his writing than any other reader. With a conjecture in impression writer tries

Life would have been far worst without artists. God or nature, in fact, is the first artist, who has created life and its cacophonous music. Art is nothing but passion to innovate and to see the world through eyes of its own. Is Art possible without immitation? Of course not! Is Art limited to immitation? Answer is again in negative. The primary basis of art is immitation. Its tools are ready at hand. But arts transcend the limitation of mechanics. It doesn't remain repetitive rather breaks the shackles of imitative and repetitive cycle and brings freshness into the perspective to see the world through new eyes. Erich Fromm rightly suggested that being a prisoner of our own ideas is far more slavish "state of being", since the agent remains in hallucination if he or she has his or her own voice or not in expression but in reality his voice is nothing but echoing the sentiments of society (Fromm, Escape from Freedom).  In the Information Age, people are consumers of web-co