Thoughts: 2008

"Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face"¹. This is the news that came up early this month. I'm not sure how it works with friendship but I for sure can say my mind feels more peaceful every time I blog. It's as though it was shouting in the background all the time to express itself and got a voice through the blog to say what it wanted. Though I am not blogging for any audience just expressing my thoughts gives me happiness.

Having said that I stumbled upon some groups and blogs yesterday discussing about existence or non-existence of God and about how life originated on Earth. My my! The people on the groups are so opinionated and close-minded that they refuse to listen to others and put forth their own views usually without any supporting facts. I should say that I wasted around two hours of my time going through the posts. When the argument becomes meaningless it is better to back off. I cannot stop myself from quoting the following proverbs.

No one is as deaf as the man who will not listen.
A wise man knows what he says, a fool says what he knows.
When a wise man talks to a fool, two fools are talking.
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you be like him.
One never needs their humor as much as when they argue with a fool.

Let's see this from the book Rāja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda,²"Vāda and Siddhānta — these are the two sorts of scriptural knowledge — Vāda (the argumentative) and Siddhānta (the decisive). When a man is entirely ignorant he takes up the first of these, the argumentative fighting, and reasoning pro and con; and when he has finished that he takes up the Siddhānta, the decisive, arriving at a conclusion."

"Intellectual gymnastics are necessary at first. We must not go blindly into anything. The Yogi has passed the argumentative state, and has come to a conclusion, which is, like the rock, immovable. The only thing he now seeks to do is to intensify that conclusion. Do not argue, he says; if one forces arguments upon you, be silent. Do not answer any argument, but go away calmly, because arguments only disturb the mind. The only thing necessary is to train the intellect, what is the use of disturbing it for nothing? The intellect is but a weak instrument, and can give us only knowledge limited by the senses. The Yogi wants to go beyond the senses, therefore intellect is of no use to him. He is certain of this and, therefore, is silent, and does not argue. Every argument throws his mind out of balance, creates a disturbance in the Chitta, and a disturbance is a drawback. Argumentations and searchings of the reason are only by the way. There are much higher things beyond them."

Let's get away from the topic of argument to something lighter... like a story. You might have read this already or haven't, I got this in an email about thirteen months back. Ok, on with the story now...

This is really a great suspense...

Read it carefully to know what it is...

A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?"

The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."

The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks again accept him, feed him, even fix his car.

That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier.

The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."

The man says, "All right, all right. I'm dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?"

The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk."

The man sets about his task. Some forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth.

The monks reply, "Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound."

The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, "The sound is right behind that door."

The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, "Real funny. May I have the key?"
The monks give him the key, and he opens the door.

Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door.

The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, and amethyst.
Finally, the monks say, "This is the last key to the last door."

The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door,
turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to
find the source of that strange sound.....
.......
.
.
.
. But I can't tell you what it is, because you're not a monk.
;-)
I liked the story very much. It was funny and a bit irking :-D
But then I couldn't stop there. It seemed to strike some familiar chords.

I was reminded of this from the same book quoted earlier,
"... it tries to force a passage through this hollow canal, and as it rises step by step, as it were, layer after layer of the mind becomes open and all the different visions and wonderful powers come to the Yogi. When it reaches the brain, the Yogi is perfectly detached from the body and mind; the soul finds itself free."

And the monks saying, "We can't tell you. You are not a monk."... This rang bells too.
There is a verse in ancient Tamil literature,

"Kandavar vindilar; Vindavar kandilar"

It means that, one who has realized [God], never talks about it and one who proclaims never realized [God].
So save yourself some time from opinionated people or blogs debating about such topics by skipping them³. If you need to know, get the help of a learned person and if you can't get anyone to help you out then investigate yourself.

"But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest."
- Buddha

It would be good if we can keep this proverb in mind,
"He who knows, and knows he knows,
he is a wise man, seek him.
He who knows and knows not he knows,
he is asleep, wake him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not,
he is a child, teach him.
He who knows not, and knows not he knows not,
he is a fool, shun him."
I'll end this big post by quoting a line which I read in an article when I was a kid.
"A true seeker may falter but he never fails".

1. Blogging boosts your social life (ABC Science Online)
2. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Raja-Yoga/Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms - Concentration: Its Practice
3. You might consider skipping this blog too if it is too opinionated... unfortunately you have crossed this far and it's almost going to end :-D

Thoughts

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Zen

Monday, March 24, 2008

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