The Crux of the matter - summary of the blog so far

One of the greatest and most pressing issues facing humanity is the lack of awareness in most people. Most people just react to external stimuli and are not aware of what drives them or their actions. Externally people might be free but they are bound by the chains of their limited viewpoint, prejudiced thought, narrow-minded behavior and the inability to think outside the box. We, the people, assume and firmly believe that we are free and act according to our own volition - but it is not difficult to see that in reality we are driven by our petty minds, by fear, jealousy, greed, spite, misplaced ambition etc. Indeed, we are not even aware of this.

Awareness is the consciousness and deep understanding of how and why we think, act and behave the way we do. The first step towards awareness is to become aware of our general lack of awareness. Awareness imparts the ability to think clearly, logically and compassionately with an open mind without any preconceived notions clouding our decisions. Awareness has nothing to do with education or bookish/technical knowledge. Even people with higher degrees in education, experts in technical fields, noble laureates, great artists and people with encyclopedic knowledge are afflicted with lack of awareness. This malady afflicts not only individual persons but also families, societies, companies, nations and religions. It is due to the lack of awareness that people and societies make imprudent decisions, take unwise actions and, because they miss the big picture, base their life and actions on their prejudices, narrow-mindedness and preconceptions.

This lack of awareness is the cause of many ills in this world. It makes us desire money over happiness; it makes nations, religions and societies presume their superiority over others; it causes nations to go to war over oil; it turns people into terrorists; it causes us to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people in less developed countries while we covet their natural resources; it causes nations to crave nuclear weapons; it kills our compassion and respect for others; it decreases productivity in individuals and companies; it causes us to treat symptoms instead of getting to the root cause of problems. Finally as an example of the ultimate greed, avarice and total lack of awareness, we are causing humanity to self destruct by damaging nature and environment in numerous ways and thus destroying our planet.

Awareness would make us make us realize these facts; it would make us work for the common good of people while being inter-dependent; people would respect other cultures, religions, nations and ideas; it would result in the preservation of nature; it would improve productivity in individuals and companies.

The sad truth is that most people are even unaware of this lack of awareness! And others are apathetic towards it. This trance into which the humanity has fallen can only be broken when people are awakened from their stupor of day to day life to which they have become accustomed.

Sickness simplifies things

Being aware is also being simple. With awareness comes simplicity because when we are aware we don't make things complicated, we don't let the mind wander aimlessly or struggle unnecessarily.

When we are simple we realize what the truly important issues are. We realize that most things we normally worry about are not really that important. There really are very few things that are truly important and worth losing sleep over (or losing the precious hours of our life over).

This realization sometimes comes through in sickness. I was not feeling well for the last few days and as has happened when I have been sick before, I once again realized that I would give up a lot of things that I think important just to be in good health.

Money, career, successful entrepreneur, owning a better house, wearing brand name clothes etc look trivial when you understand what the really important things are: health, family, compassion for everyone, being alive to life, awareness itself.

With this realization and awareness, it becomes clear how not to lead our lives as we realize the 'un-awareness' in our life. That is a good start to awareness.

Now, if only we could find the secret to simplifying our lives and being aware without falling sick....

Fear of the unknown

We have talked about awareness in the last few posts and hopefully at least glimpsed the importance of it. How critical is awareness? How do we act when we realize its importance? How deeply do we understand the significance of being aware and living with awareness?

We talked about the danger of words in the last post. I hope we are not falling in that same trap with the word 'awareness'. Some people identify too much with the concept of awareness. Or maybe they identify with their identification with awareness? For them awareness has become a buzzword - they are more caught up with the word and have lost the real understanding behind the word.

People are afraid of the present moment. They actually like the chattering mind, the busy mind. That way they can live their whole life in their mind, in their words, and in their thoughts without ever having to deal with reality, without actually being alive. That is because we are afraid of what we might encounter if we wake up. We are perfectly content in our make believe world which seems so real to us because that is the only reality we have ever known. There is comfort in the familiar and we would rather be comfortable than take the risk of the unknown reality that comes with being alive! That is the life we live.

If we understand the significance of being aware, then we will not let this fear be an obstacle to being alive. Let us not be afraid of fear itself but embrace the unknown which is part of life. Let us not fear the unknown which we awake to when awareness strikes because that is the very definition of being alive!

Duped by words

Speech and language are among the most important inventions in the journey of human evolution. Without speech we would not have transformed from cavemen to modern humans, nor would have been possible the technological enhancements and today's comforts that we take for granted. Speech, language and thus words play an important role in our day to day life.

Words enable us to think, to frame our ideas, and to transfer our thoughts through print and conversation. Words enable us to identify objects, places and people. Words enable scientific and technological enhancements - we use words to name new discoveries, phenomena and inventions.

A word is a very useful and indispensable tool. But there is a dark side to words! They have the tendency to overpower us, consume us and hide the actuality from us. This happens when we make words more important than the reality behind them, when we forget that there is more to words than the words themselves. When we see a rose, the word 'rose' immediately springs to mind and we say,” what a beautiful rose!". The two words 'beautiful' and 'rose' are more often than not used quite haphazardly in such a situation, without really noticing either the beauty or the rose itself! Those words hide the color, the smell, the texture, the thorns that go along with it, the individuality of the particular rose, and even the surroundings - everything that makes the rose beautiful. Further, the chattering mind starts running away with thoughts,” Maybe I will present that rose to my wife..."

The same thing happens when we start having a relationship with a name rather than the person, when words start having positive and negative connotations such that we don't see the truth behind them, when we string these words together to form a train of thoughts that because of their limitations lead us further away from truth and awareness.

Words thus are clearly a hindrance to awareness when we do not realize their limitations. They make our minds dull when we don't see through them to observe the reality behind them.

Another danger of words is that a given word can have different meanings and different degrees and shades for different people. Due to this, not only do words hide the truth portraying a biased and prejudiced picture of the truth, they also portray a different picture to different people. And then people go to war due to these differences!

When I first realized the danger of words and stopped to look at the rose, I realized that there was so much I had been missing! At that moment the words dropped away, the train of thoughts halted, the chattering mind stopped for that moment of awareness - that was the first time I really experienced the rose! I wish I could experience my whole life like that - but I hope you realize the danger in that train of thought!

Words should be used as tools. Let us be aware of being enraptured by words into unawareness.

Stop struggling

Everyone has experienced moments of awareness at some point in their life. Such moments are always characterized by peace, tranquility and calmness. You are relaxed yet intensely alert and completely alive without too much effort or struggle.

These moments arise sometimes when you have given up. When you have stopped struggling and your mind has stopped racing. Most of the times, due to our lack of awareness, we are trying too hard. We struggle too much, putting in too much effort. This effort can be physical, mental, emotional, intellectual etc depending on what we are doing. By extension, we struggle too much in our lives. We make life more complicated than it is or needs to be.

Note that struggling is different than concentrated effort in the right direction with awareness. We are not advocating inactivity or not putting in effort towards your goals.

When I was learning ballroom and latin dancing, I, like every other beginner, was trying too hard. It is only when I realized this, relaxed both physically and mentally, and stopped struggling that I became a very good dancer. The improvement was dramatic and almost sudden. Perhaps you have had this experience while learning some other skill - maybe swimming or rollerblading etc.

Sometimes we struggle even when we have no control over events or outcomes. Then we also struggle because we have just gotten used to doing it and because it gives us a false sense of being productive even when there is nothing productive that can be done.

Obviously, putting in too much effort or struggling is a waste of energy and time. It also is a hindrance to being aware and to being alive.

Part of being aware involves becoming aware of our constant struggle, asking ourselves a simple question, "Am I trying too hard? Am I struggling too much?" If you have realized the fact once, then just asking this question will calm you down and increase your awareness at that moment.

Educating our children

Educating our children is one of the most important tasks we have. Preparing our children for their future so that they can have fulfilling lives is a great responsibility.

We do a reasonably good job in terms of passing on the technical knowledge we have gained so far - science, mathematics, arts and other subjects taught in school. We do a much poorer job in some of the life skills that are important - opening and using bank accounts, balancing checkbooks, health and life insurance, saving for the future, retirement planning, taxes, managing credit cards, tracking our health etc - one would be surprised how many people struggle with some of these basic skills. While knowing how to solve a differential equation in calculus (or pick any technical skill learnt in college) is important, it is also important to manage credit card debt.

But perhaps we do the worst job in teaching our children how to be alive to this world. When a child is born, he is naturally alert, inquisitive, enthusiastic, and open minded. However, as the child grows, he becomes like us - an unaware adult. Surely that indicates that there is something amiss. Not only do we do a bad job, we set bad examples - we are bad examples. Because of our lack of awareness and because we have become so accustomed to the current state of affairs, we don't even realize the harm we are causing our children.

Being a new father of a baby girl, M, the question of right education is of paramount importance to me. As we awaken to the importance of awareness in our life, let us realize that awareness is critical not just for us to be really alive but it is also an important skill for us to teach and pass on to our children.

Let us continue on this journey to awareness not just for oursleves, but for our children, for their future, for the future of this world and for the future of humanity

Action versus reaction

People like to think that they are in control of their destiny. While it is true that we create our own future, it is also true that most people are not in control of their destiny because of lack of awareness.

People think that they decide what to do, what action to take. They think that they are free, with freedom to choose what to do, freedom to live their life any way they want. However, if we look at the actions of most people, it is easy to see that this so called freedom is wasted on them. Most of the time we get carried away by the tide of day to day life, swept away by the tide of lack of awareness. We live in our chattering minds, in our wayward thoughts, affected by our prejudices and preconceived notions, our actions guided by false ego, unfounded fear, misplaced ambitions, and false smugness of our knowledge and superiority. And, although we might catch a glimspe of this every now and then, most of the time we are not even aware of these forces behind our actions, especially at the time of the action. Since we are not really aware of life at the given moment, can we really call this action?

It seems that most of the time what we call action, is really just a reaction. We never really act, most of the time we are just reacting! Let's stop here and let that sink in. If we really understand that, not just logically and intellectually, but really understand it deeply, then that understanding will alter our lives fundamentally. It will change how we approach life, how we live our lives and will put us on the doorstep of awareness.

Note that this is not a call to inactivity! Quite the contrary. This is a call to stop the 'busy-ness' and false activity that we mistake for action.

Let's stop reacting all the time and let real action arise out of awareness. Let's be active, not reactive.