The Category of Four.

Who Controls The World?

Just an hour ago, I was watching the P-Gurus Channel on YouTube.

The following question was put by the host Sri Aiyer before Sri Sumeet Peerji :

Who is controlling the World?

And Sri Sumeet Peerji answered :

Religion, Conflict, Interference and War-Economy.

Now I can say these Categories of Four really govern the state of World affairs.

I commented upon this citing 3 stanzas from Shrimadbhagvadgita :

नादत्ते कस्यचित्पापं सुकृतं चैव न प्रभुः

अज्ञानेनावृतं ज्ञानं तेन मुह्यन्ति जन्तवः।। 

न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभुः

न च कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते।। 

ज्ञानेन तु तदज्ञानं येषां नाशितं आत्मनः

तेषां आदित्यवज्ज्ञानं प्रकाशयति तत् परम्।। 

--

There exists no such a unique objective world common to all. Everyone thinks of such a world in one's own mind. There is neither anything like individual action (Karma). Karma is but an idea. Likewise the sense of doer-ship too is an idea.  The sense of "I suffer / enjoy / experience" is also again such a thought in the mind and lastly - the possessiveness and being the possessor of possessions - "I'm The Owner"  is a similar one idea only. 

So only the swabhAva / nature performs all activities through all the beings, and they wrongly become a victim of the idea "I do,  I have to do,  I must do, I will / will not do and several others like this. This is verily अज्ञान / the delusion that covers up the  ज्ञान  /  Wisdom. Really nothing what-so-ever happens and so no one is responsible for anything that takes place anywhere in the world.

***

Who Rules Over?

M A Y A

P O E T R Y

--

Did You Ever Wonder, 

Who Rules Over,

Your Body, Your Mind,

Your Breath, Your Feelings?

Did You Ever Wonder, 

When Inadvertently You Say,

My Body, My Breath, My Mind,

My Possessions, My Feelings, 

My Memory, My Cravings,

Did You Ever Wonder,

Who Cares For You, 

When You're Absent-minded,

Walking Along the Precipice, 

On The Sharp Mountain Ridge?

When Inadvertently You Claim, 

The Body, The Breath, The Mind,

The Memory And The Feelings, 

As Your Own, owned By You, 

Like Many Worldly Things!

Don't You Carelessly,

Because Of The In-attention,

Oblivious Of The Fact,

Whether There Is A Possessor,

Whether There Is The Possessed,

The Things That Are Owned, 

And The One That Is The Owner,

Exist Independently Apart And,

Different From One Another?

Where-from Arrives The Thought,

That Splits Up Itself As Me and Mine, 

Where You Are The Body And Mind?

Where You Seem To Have Control, 

And You Rule over All These Things?

Or, Maybe, There Is A Power,

Beyond All Your Knowledge,

Beyond Your Understanding,

That Alone Controls Your Body,

Your breath And Your Mind?

Could You Ever Comprehend,

Could You Ever Understand, 

That Mysterious Power,

From Where You Come,

Where-from In Existence,

You May Call It's God, 

You May Say It's Love, 

Did You Ever Wonder, 

Neither God Nor Love, 

It's But The Power Of Karma, 

Neither Your's Nor Mine,

Not Of Those Innumerable Beings,

But Only Of Totality As Whole.

Nothing Other Than Destiny,

Another Name Of MAYA.

Once You See And Know,

You Stop Finding Out, 

The Causes And The Reasons, 

For Whatever Seems To Happen, 

Because It's Just Senseless,

Meaningless And Absurd Too. 

Then You Abide In The "What Is",

Timelessly, Unaffected, In Peace,

And Become Peace Itself. 

***

 

 

The Law Of Four

About Laws and Rules :

Yesterday I wrote :

The Rule Of  Four

We know that Laws are firm and strict, inviolable, while the Rules are flexible and could adopt to different situations and conditions.

The Supreme Reality is The Intelligence Non-dual Supreme, that governs the Laws while the Manifest and the Latent Reality is The consciousness where the formal division between the subject and the object, between the subjective and the objective appears to exist.

The Supreme Power that is associated with The Supreme Reality is Itself the Law; The Manifest and The Potential Unmanifest is The indirect mode of the Nature / प्रकृति having two aspects - one, the Power Of Knowing and another Power Of Activity. Of the two, The Power Of Knowing is the static while the Power Of Activity is the dynamic aspect of this Power.

The Supreme Reality is The Awareness; The Nature / प्रकृति  is consciousness.

The consciousness has two modes :

The Mechanical or the instrumental - the Activity, and The Authoritative or the Ego - The Knowing or the Light.

The instrumental is the illuminated, the Ego is the one that illuminates. Still the Light that illuminates both is beyond the two.  

The Rule Of Four  

applies to the illuminated / instrumental and helps in conducting the activities of the material world, and also to the Ego that assumes the sense of authority over the world seen by itself in its own very limited light. We can say it is the world of the individual.

Still there is an authority that controles and regulates the functioning of both the worlds : the individual and the collective as well.

This is Mahat Prakriti / महत् प्रकृति :

मम योनिर्महद्ब्रह्म तस्मिन्गर्भं दधाम्यहम्।। 

Thus points out Gita. 

Now about The Law Of Four :

Ego the individual has two predominant attributes : One is physical and mental activity, and the another is just knowing only.

We can see that while our body and the  mind go through any activity, we say : I do, did, will do, should or shouldn't do; at the physical / bodily or even also at the mental level and when that state of body / mind is over and we perform any another activity, we assume the sense of doer-ship and claim to do,  did, will do,  should or shouldn't do. 

Obviously during all the time there is a sense of knowing that is though in-active watched the happening of the activity. The One Who knew didn't perform the activity and only saw that it was being performed.

Now we can relate this fact with :

The Rule Of Four

While in the world everything appears to happen prompted and governed by some Law unseen by us, in the individual one spontaneously and without any effort associates oneself with the sense of the doer-ship, and with the sense of having seen the happening also. Though the activities keep on changing all the time, the sense of doer-ship and the knowing remains unchanging.

Then there are physical / bodily states of "being" when one has to go through the states of childhood, adulthood, middle-age and old-age.

Not only we humans but almost every living being goes through this what we call it's "life-cycle".

So long as one is kind of an animal, one can't see this whole pattern. Only a man of intelligence can see and discriminate this whole thing.

Accordingly though the Nature / प्रकृति  itself facilitates this for all living beings only a human with evolved and mature consciousness can understand this fact.

This is verily :

The Law Of Four.

In Vedantika parlance this is called the four  आश्रम / Ashrama namely :

ब्रह्मचर्य / brahmacharya

गृहस्थ / gRahastha

वानप्रस्थ / vAnaprastha and

संन्यास / sannyAsa respectively.

Everyone has to go through these four states of "being" and "experiencing" too.

This is the Law. 

Or

The Law Of Four.

---

Next : 

The  Category  Of  Four

(संस्कृत  -- कतिगृहीय कोटिगृहीय)

***

Life Personal

Within, Without and Beyond.

--

The Better Half.

There is a life external (to me), and a life internal (to me). I'm but the composite of the two as if the two make up a whole 'I'  / me, like a couple where one is the better half the other.

I identify myself as the one who has a life external as well as a life internal. 

In both lives I come across two issues. 

One is being Related while the another is being connected.

Either I may be related with my better half but not connected. Again I may be connected but not related. Happiness in life happens when I am connected and related also at the same moment. There are chances when there is dispute over certain thing or issues.

Occasionally there are times when life is going smooth and mind is in utter peace and silence.

Then something stirs and at once follows a sense of dissatisfaction, anger, anxiety and uncertainty of the future. There is an urge as well to remove or overcome the same or to getting rid of the situation so as to restore the peace and silence that I had been enjoying a moment ago.

Where-from comes up the desire?

Is it because of the urge that there is the desire or is because of the desire that the urge arises?

Doesn't the moment I start believing in the existence of something other than this spontaneous peace and silence, this urge assumes reality and raises its head?

This may be a trivial bodily need like the hunger, thirst, sleep, body-ache or a pain somewhere in the body or something like the weather that may cause uneasiness and discomfort of the kind.

The internal life affects the external and likewise the external affects the internal. 

It's like a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole.

But why do I expect or fear about the assumed future? Why do I think of it and hope that everything would / should go in my favor? Isn't it an external factor, an element that infiltrates the mind and overpowers me?

Is really there a future? Or there is only a thought of an assumed future, like in an abstract form that soon looks like a reality to me?

Still I can see and understand that I have neither the knowledge nor experience of  what is going to happen in the coming of the next moment.

Maybe, I can guess about the things of the purely physical and material kind, how could I possibly know before-hand through what states of mind I shall go in the next moment(s)? 

Precisely this is the utter ignorance and in a way the foolishness also that I get infatuated and overwhelmed by this idea of a hypothetical future and then want to affect a change over it.

What progress can I hope from all my efforts in trying and getting involved in  such an activity?

***

The Rule Of Four.

The Four Fundamental Aspects Of The Evolution In Consciousness :

1.Mindfulness

2.Watchfulness

3.Witnessing

4.Awareness.

The Practice of meditation as a means of Spiritual Evolution of mind begins with the Mindfulness. Mind is Consciousness and Consciousness is Mind. This implies there is someone who is conscious of and about something. This someone is Mind / conscious factor, while the something is the Object which is given attention to by the Mind / consciousness.

We all know there is a multitude of the objects and at any moment only one of them is given the attention. But the one who pays attention is always one and the same. So this someone can deliberately or involuntarily shift attention to any of those many and various objects. If this happens involuntarily it means the one is in a state of where mindfulness lacks, like the animals who unmindful of their activity go on wandering from place to place. Only whenever an external force or the internal mental situation like the hunger, thirst, fear or sleep forces them, they stop or alter their activity. So they are governed by the forces of nature in a mechanical way and have no awareness any of themselves as someone other than the something.

But man is given with a sense of being someone and not a something that is driven by the forces of nature.

This is the beginning of consciousness or the Mind.

Then this Mind evolves and prospers in a state of watchfulness where it can watch itself, so as to observe how this someone behaves in various situations.

Still the sense of being someone matures even more in and as a strong sense of "I", "I'm being myself or the ego, and though there are several others like me, I am a someone far greater and important than all those others; be that a something or someone.

This sense of being myself - the ego can though desire, can never eradicate itself. It's the strong bond of the watchfulness with the consciousness that prevents it from from doing so. In the activity of watching, -the sense of being someone is there and is hardly given attention any, whatsoever.

Only a deep sense of the futility and the absurdity of the world and all the things in the world causes in it an urge to find out whether there is a way out from all this nonsense.

When and as this sense of the futility and the absurdity of the world matures and ripens enough, it falls down on its own.

Then the same watchfulness undergoes a mutation or the radical transformation of the kind where it is discovered, found out that neither something nor someone apart from and other than the light of understanding of  "What Is" really exists.

This is verily what could be called : 

The Awareness,

Where all apparent distinctions and all such differences cease to exist.

When this happens, though the world is as before seen as a multitude of names, forms, colors and appearances still all are realized as but many expressions of the one and the same Awareness.

***

  

The Insomniac

And The Somnambulist.

I had a friend. His father was a simple clerk in some government department.

He had a sister and this family of  four was living happily in a quarter alloted to them by the government.

I had one another friend. He lived in the same campus where the family of four was living. His father and mother both were serving in the same government department. That is how the two families got accomodation in the same campus. 

The daughter in the family of four was kind of somnambulist. This was known to them since when she was just a 3 or 4 year old kid. But when I knew the family, she was about the age of 18 or 19. She had joined a college and was studying in the second year of the bachelor's degree.

She would often asked me for help when she had any difficulties in her study, and I would happily try solving her problems and the difficulties.

Once her mother told me, every night  they tie her leg or hand with some immovable object such as to a chair or to the door-knob or a window. I was just  amazed.

"Why?" -  I asked.

She told their daughter would often walk in sleep and though has no problem any what-so-ever, wouldn't dash into walls or other things, yet could walk up-to 1 or 2 miles sometimes.

"Oh".

The father of another friend was kind of an insomniac. He was old and was about to retire soon, maybe in an year or two. He couldn't pass time at home turning sides in the bed. So he would walk up in the sprawling campus area. For an hour or more he would keep walking and then return to bed. 

One night when he was on his routine walk and had walked for about one and a half mile, he was surprised to see the somnambulist girl on his way. He could not understand what was wrong with her in the midnight at about 01:00 A.M.

Then he followed her from behind and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her entering in her house.

Next day all in the campus knew this.

But since that day someone would take care and make sure that she is tied with a post while going to bed.

She was married off with the same friend who knew all this and was already well aware of this problem. But they were in love and too intimate with one another.

After some 25 year, they celebrated their marriage anniversary, all invited in the party shared this interesting story and all enjoyed too.

***

Troubled Waters.

Fishing in the Troubled Waters.

--

मैं नहीं कह सकता कि उपरोक्त शीर्षक का प्रयोग मैंने जिस प्रकार और अर्थ में किया है वह अंग्रेजी भाषा में इसी प्रकार और अर्थ में किया जाता है या नहीं। वैसे मेरा तात्पर्य यहाँ यह है कि जैसे किसी शान्त तालाब के जल में मछलियाँ पकड़ना आसान है बनिस्बत अशान्त जल में मछलियाँ पकड़ने से, किसी भी मनुष्य, स्थिति या राष्ट्र के बारे में भविष्यकथन का ज्योतिषीय प्रयास वैसा ही कुछ है। जैसे किसी इलेक्ट्रिशियन के लिए बिजली की लाइन पर काम करना तब अधिक आसान होता है जब उसमें बिजली का प्रवाह बन्द हो और प्रवाह के चालू रहने पर काम करना अपेक्षतया अधिक कठिन और जोखिमयुक्त होता है, वैसे ही किसी राजनीतिक, सामाजिक, क्षेत्रीय या अंतर्राष्ट्रीय स्थितियों के उथलपुथल के समय उनके बारे में भविष्य के आकलन और भविष्यकथन करने का प्रयास अपेक्षाकृत अधिक जोखिमयुक्त होता है बनिस्बत किसी सामान्य समय पर उनका आकलन करने से। वैसे सामान्य वैदिक ज्योतिष सिद्धान्तों के अनुसार प्रत्येक आकाशीय खगोलपिण्ड जैसे कि ग्रह-उपग्रह नक्षत्र और उनके समूह अर्थात् राशियाँ सचेतन विशिष्ट देवता होते हैं  और इसी प्रकार राहु तथा केतु भी स्थूल पिण्ड नहीं हैं, फिर भी राहु और केतु दोनों सूक्ष्म आकाशीय अक्ष के दो शीर्षबिन्दु हैं जिन्हें कि ज्योतिषीय गणना में अपरिहार्यतः आवश्यक रूप से मानना पड़ता है क्योंकि शीर्षबिन्दुओं की तरह से भी उनका अस्तित्व सूर्य-ग्रहण और चन्द्र-ग्रहण के सटीक पूर्वानुमान से भी सिद्ध है, इसलिए वे भी अदृश्य होते हुए भी दूसरे स्थूल दृश्य पिण्डों जैसे, ऐसे ही सचेतन देवता हैं, जो किसी भी घटना के फलित होने में महत्वपूर्ण होते हैं। जैसे एक से अधिक ग्रहों-उपग्रहों का विशिष्ट योग उनके सम्मिलित प्रभाव का सूचक है सकता है, वैसे ही समय विशेष - नक्षत्र, मुहूर्त, करण, योग, तिथि, मास और पक्ष भी इतने ही महत्वपूर्ण होते हैं। तात्पर्य यह कि जैसे जैसे समय का विस्तार छोटा या बड़ा होता जाता है, वैसे वैसे भविष्य का आकलन और भविष्यकथन कर सकना  उतना ही कम या अधिक कठिन होने लगता है। फिर भी ज्योतिषशास्त्र के अधिकाँश अध्येता इसी प्रयास में लगे ही रहते हैं।

और एक दूसरा उदाहरण शतरंज के खेल का हो सकता है। जैसे खिलाड़ी के लिए किसी चाल को चलते समय यद्यपि अनेक विकल्प होते हैं किन्तु उनमें से वह किसी एक को ही चुन सकता है, और इसके बाद उसका प्रतिद्वंदी भी इसी तरह से चलने के लिए अनेक विकल्पों के होने पर भी एक को ही चुन सकता है, और अगली ही चाल में उसके लिए चल सकने के लिए उपलब्ध संभावित विकल्पों की संख्या आघातवर्ध्य क्रम में बढ़ती ही चली जाती है, वैसे ही ज्योतिषीय आकलन और गणना में भी संभावनाओं का क्रम ज्योतिषीय गणना करनेवाले के लिए दुरूह चुनौती होता है। शुद्ध खगोलीय स्थूल घटनाओं का तो अवश्य ही ठीक ठीक और संदेहरहित पूर्वानुमान लगाया जा सकता है, जिस पर सभी खगोलविद सहमत ही होते हैं लेकिन जब किसी सूक्ष्म घटना का पूर्व आकलन और अनुमान लगाया जाता है तो उसके सत्य सिद्ध होने की संभावना लगभग शून्य हो जाती है। विशेष रूप से राजनीतिक स्थितियों के बारे में तो यही कहा जा सकता है। यद्यपि किसी समय स्थितियाँ सामान्य होंगी या असामान्य, यह तो बतलाया जा सकता है किन्तु किसी भी स्थिति का एक लगभग धुँधला सा चित्र भी बना पाना कठिन होता है, फिर अक्षरशः सही सिद्ध हो सकनेवाली कोई बिलकुल स्पष्ट भविष्यवाणी कर पाना तो और भी अधिक कठिन है। इसलिए ज्योतिषियों की अपेक्षा तो दूसरे लोग जैसे कि राजनीतिक, आर्थिक, सामाजिक राष्ट्रीय या अंतर्राष्ट्रीय परिस्थितियों के विश्लेषणकर्ता ही अधिक बेहतर पूर्वानुमान कर सकते हैं।

किन्तु सामान्य मनुष्य के लिए उन्हें समझ सकना और उनके द्वारा दिए गए विभिन्न  पूर्वानुमानों को स्वीकार कर पाना संभव नहीं हो पाता है। और शायद इसलिए भी लोगों की रुचि ज्योतिषियों के पूर्वानुमानों में अधिक होती है, राजनीतिक प्रेक्षकों और आलोचकों के द्वारा व्यक्त किए गए  निष्कर्षों में नहीं। 

***